sour insides: dealing with what I can't fix.

I’m a “fixer.”  I consider it one of my strengths and also among my greatest down falls.  When I see things hurt, broken, or could just use improving, I want to jump in.  God has gifted me to be an encourager and to walk along side of people and I am so overwhelmed to say that he’s allowed me to watch how he’s healed and shaped people as I’ve joined them on journeys.  StrengthsFinders says I have the “restorative” strength.

But I have to confess something to you this morning.  Part of my motivation to fix or restore comes out of my desire for control, as well as often thinking I know what is best.  When I see gaps or conflicts in the lives of students I work with, friends, organizations, churches, governments, etc, I see the potential there is to be healthier, to grow, to take a risk.  There are times when I am able to have a conversation or give insight that encourages a person to consider what they might do to grow in wholeness.  

But the times where there’s really nothing I can do, when I'm completely out of control, I struggle so greatly with sour insides.  You know that feeling when your gut turns because something is broken beyond fixing, or so it seems.  A physical reaction to things not being the way they ought.  That’s sour insides.  The grief in your gut, the sad in your stomach.

• There’s nothing I can do about health issues that rattle my family and my friends’ families.  There’s no way I can fix it.  I try to offer up articles I’ve read for new food choices or exercise options (yeah, guys…I’m a fixer).  I have to come to admit that I don’t have healing powers or a cure for cancer, but a spot in my insides began to turn sour.

• Wars raging in our world and global conflicts are heartbreaking, terrifying, and seemingly endless.  People offer simplistic, flippant solutions from their safe American living rooms not seeing the layers of political narratives, instilled beliefs, and utter terror that reign in people that look just like us and just like the ones we see as the enemy.  Abuse and hurt continues year after year, even within the places and people that have claimed to be the presence of Christ on earth.  I get overwhelmed and angry.  I get sour insides.

• I grieve in helplessness about the day burned in my mind and heart when we visited people who lived in a dump in Managua, Nicaragua.  We handed out snacks and juice to children through our van windows, as it wasn’t safe to even get out of our vehicle.  In minutes, our van was swarmed with desperately hungry people who lived among garbage that even contained visible bio-hazard boxes and sharps containers.  Our time was short there, as police insisted we leave the area to limit the exposure the Americans had to such an incredible blind spot in the poorest country in Latin America.  A van full of energetic and playful students was silenced for the afternoon, as the weight of an issue crushed them.  Handing out juice did little to contribute.  The issue is so huge and multi-layered.  We are powerless to save.  And a part of my insides has never unsoured from that day because that’s not the way life is supposed to be.

• I grieve broken places in my story and the stories of those I love.  I grieve sometimes that life isn’t what I thought it would be.  Finances, struggles with children, broken relationships, lack of career direction, unfulfilled dreams, tragedy, thinking we'd be "ahead" of where we are in life by now (whatever that even means).  Circumstances that persist despite proactivity.  People that decide they don't respect, value, or even like you just because.  I find myself and others utterly out of control and at the mercy of so many factors.  And my insides sour for a moment more.

• I don’t have any ability to change the minds or soften the words of people that vehemently and brutally disagree in hurtful ugliness within politics, race issues, community issues, and even in my very own church body.  And this morning I ached from sour insides and gut grief.

Like so many other days, I’m forced to see my inability to be the savior and stop to plead with the One who is.  There’s some days where I’m so overwhelmed by what I can’t control.  Jesus speaks gently:

“Take heart, I have overcome the world.”

”Come to me, weary one.  You’re carrying such heavy burdens.  I’ll give you rest.”

“Take my yoke upon you.  Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” 

Gut healing words.  Everything isn’t magically better, but in that time, to remember once again that Christ is King and he is the hope that will never disappoint, is enough (Rom. 5:5).  As songwriter, JJ Heller, put so eloquently, "sometimes I don't know what you're doing, but I know who you are."  (Check out the amazing song here.)

The truth is, if we could fix the world, if we could even fix ourselves, we wouldn’t need Jesus'--his saving death and resurrection--and we would quickly forget him.  I know I would be in great danger of doing so.  But we desperately see the need.  Our sour insides plead for a Savior and his “shalom” – that everything would be as it ought, whole and full of peace.  I was reminded once again this week of the power of praying “shalom” over people, situations, and seemingly hopeless conflicts.  Because I believe that there will be a day when the shalom of Christ will reign in fullness and all will be as it ought.  We pray for glimpses of it now.

So I pray once again.  Turning over my sour insides to my Savior.  Confessing my need for control and my inability to save.  Pleading for shalom where my efforts fall short.  And resting in the love of the One who overcame the world.

Christ, grant us your shalom and give us good bellies.

do you or don't you? the question of wanting to be healed.

Relevant Magazine posted an article nearly a year ago by Jordan Davis called, “Do you want to be healed?”  It looked at the story from John 5 where Jesus encounters a man who was lame, lying at the Pool of Bethesda.  As the pool begins to stir, Jesus goes to the man and asks him, “do you want to get well?”

I’ve been thinking about that article a lot lately.  It seems pretty straight forward, right?  As the article asks, who among us who has been sick, doesn’t want to get well?  It seems like a silly question.  Then you begin to think about it…there’s a reason why it was asked.

I saw Beth Moore a couple of weeks ago at the Living Proof Conference in Phoenix.  It was a wonderful experience.  She shared a powerful message with us about being marked.  We are marked by Christ.  We are also marked by our wounds.  One of the talks she gave really focused on our desire to hang on to the wounds.

There are people who have ongoing wounds that won’t heal.  Some people have ports that need to stay open.  Others have wounds that never completely mend.  Those wounds have to be tended to.  Cleaned, freed from infection, and given attention.

This can be us.  We like the attention our wounds take.  We desire the attention that our broken places get us.  We don’t know what life would be like without our wounds.  So here we are; addicted to what's hurting us most.  Tending the same wounds over and over again and never allowing them to breathe and heal, so that we can move elsewhere with our focus.

For the past few years, Easter has been a powerful time of freedom for me.  It’s a time where I reflect with God about how free I actually am.  The Lenten journey is about revealing the places where I’ve enslaved myself and Easter is all about bringing them to the surface and claiming freedom.  With vulnerability, I admit that there were so many areas of unhealthiness that came to mind this year, that I didn’t even allow myself to continue the list.

That’s what happens when we let a sore fester.  Brokenness takes charge and creates problems we never had in the first place.  For me, my addiction to working has hurt my exercise habits, my eating, my social life, my spiritual life, my emotional health, and has broken my attitude toward many things.

We complain about the wounds, the shortcomings or disappointments in our lives, the extra stress, the bad habits, the lack of fulfillment in our relationship with the Lord, the lack of community, the financial struggles, and the goals left unmet.  And yet…the question still lingers.

Is the answer still so obvious?  Do you want to be healed?

If so, how badly?  Badly enough to be totally uncomfortable and in an unfamiliar place?  Badly enough to work hard?  Or stop working?  Or be terribly disciplined?

Badly enough to ask for help and admit you can’t do it alone?  Badly enough to seek counseling or medical care?  Badly enough to confess fault or forgive someone elses or both?

Badly enough to stop eating things you shouldn’t?  Or watching things you shouldn’t?  Or being with people you shouldn’t?

Badly enough to take a risk?  Badly enough to know that failure might be an option, but willing to try anyway?

Do you want to be healed badly enough to be exposed?  Or to swallow your pride and admit that things weren’t working before?

Badly enough to talk to a stranger in hopes of making a new friend?  Badly enough to look past insecurity?  Badly enough to say “no more” to fear and walk boldly?

Do you want to be healed badly enough that you’re willing to give up your right to hold that grudge?  To still be angry?  To still complain?

The man’s response to Jesus was “but Sir, I don’t have anyone to help me get into the pool.”

Yep.  I have often told Jesus how difficult it would be to be healed.  It’s too hard.  It’s not worth it.  I can’t, Jesus.  Telling everyone how much I'd like to get up and walk...but boy, it's just never been the right time.

I love the Lord’s response: “Take up your mat and walk.”

Here it is.  This is how you’re going to see healing.  Will you trust Me and do what will heal you??

It will take work.  It may be difficult.  It will take faith.  Will you step into the healing available for you?

Will you be proactive?  Will you make new and better choices?  Will you get help?

There are some powerful women that I know with amazing gifts of prayer.  They prayed over me a couple weeks ago and among them there was a resounding consensus about my welfare.  “You are overburdened.”  I guess I’d known it, but having it spoken by others hit me.  One of the women looked me in the eye and said, “you don’t have to carry this by yourself…what you need to do is rest in the loving arms of Jesus.”

My wound of overworking was being exposed.  She was right.  I raced into the Word that week.  I needed to be still in rest in my Daddy’s arms.

One step at a time, healing can be found.  You may never see yourself as completely healed in this side of eternity, but always more free than before.  I pray for your freedom and healing.  For God does His best work through us, when we lie free and open for Him to use.

There are always resources for getting healed in many and various ways.  If you don’t know where to start, ask a friend, a teacher, a pastor or church minister, a counselor.  They’ll help you make a plan.

Jesus offers healing.  We see it in the cross and the empty tomb.  He is life.  He desires life for you in the biggest, fullest, least inhibited way.  He showed that He’s all about giving you life when He gave you His.  There is no wound too big for His power.

I have goals for my life.  Goals to achieve, accomplish, and to engage.  But first, before any of that is worth doing or maybe even possible to attain, I have to seek health.  I truly believe that some of the struggles from my last couple of years have been so that I would find the deep healing at this place in my story.

And so I have to ask myself and you have to ask yourself…today and everyday going forward…are you ready?  Do you want to be healed?

what I've learned from pneumonia.

So I've been living with pneumonia for a whole week now.  It's pretty exciting stuff!  I've started back to work in the mornings and am grateful to not feel so "bump on a log"-esque.

It is frustrating because even though I'm feeling heaps better, I still have to take it slow.  Pneumonia is the kind of thing that can come back to bite you if you rush it.  When a person has pneumonia, their immune system is very weak, so it's very easy to catch anything and everything that others may be carrying.  All of these things mean that I have to continue to take it easy and rest for awhile.

This reality in my life has taught me the following things:

1.  I am terrible at resting.  Just bad.  I never thought I was!  I've felt guilty about not getting things done.  My roommate moved out the day before I got sick, so my apartment is in massive disarray.  (Can you imagine having to "rest" for several days with that?!)  I missed a conference over the weekend and a handful of other commitments and projects.  It is hard for me to stop and let the world go by without me.  The past few days, I've put "nap" on my to do list.  This is how I make rest happen.  If you need to do this to get there, you should.  It has been liberating to see that it still does and not everything requires my control or effort.

2.  Things can wait.  I found myself getting a bit overwhelmed a few times in the last week.  I was overwhelmed about what I was missing, what needed to be done in my apartment, at work, other projects I want to work on, etc etc.  I had to remind myself that it can wait.  It'll either get done or it won't.  I can only do one thing at a time.  So for this week, I've given myself a goal for each day--1 thing to accomplish in my home and 1 thing to accomplish at work.  I hope to do more in my morning at work, but it keeps me honest about when I need to go home.  I don't need to do more than this once I get home.  I could spiral into a cleaning machine and as much as I would love that, it wouldn't be good for me right now.  Today I got the fridge cleaned out (and took out the trash--two for one.  Cut me a break...it'd get stinky!).  Then I made myself stop, even though the floor was begging to be mopped and all those crates need to go to the basement.  Another time, another day.

3.  I thought I was really good at taking care of myself.  Hahahahah.  So wrong!  I was mindboggled for a few days as to how my immune system could be weak enough to get pneumonia (an infection where bacteria sneaks into your lungs when your immune system isn't looking).  I thought "yeah..I'm healthy!  How could this happen?!"  As I read about things that can strengthen my immune system, I realized, "no..I'm pretty terrible at taking care of myself."  From the time I got home from Nicaragua until I got sick, I hardly slept, I ate all the worst things, I didn't exercise (for the exception of some night skiing....yeah...didn't sleep that night hardly at all), and I was under a heap of stress with work and my roommate moving.  I was shocked!  I'm doing better on all accounts but exercise, at the moment.  The breathing thing is still an issue, but I want to do better with that when I feel better.  My point is this: I thought I was a healthy rockstar who could do all of this stuff without consequence.

Proverbs 16:18:  "Pride goes before a fall."

Yeah, there's a reason that's in Scripture.  I didn't even know I thought I was invincible, but according to how I was living, I totally did.  That must change.  Bodies are fragile things.  I have learned this.

I'm hoping that you can learn something from my sickness, too.

• Rest is important.  It's one of the biggest ways to keep you from getting sick.  Not to mention, God mandates Sabbath in Scripture.  Yeah, He knew what He was talking about with that.  The Third Commandment is God's gift to us--telling us, the world will go on if we take a day off.  It's for our own good.  We desperately need it to live and live well.
• If you need to put things off to rest, do it.  Things can wait.  So many things can wait.
• You are not invincible.  It's best you learn that now.  You are but a breath.  Bodies are fragile.  They must be taken with care.  Be a good steward of the body God has given you.  Ask Him for help with that.

Rest well and be well, my friends.