Does Anyone See My Grief and Pain?

Does Anyone See My Grief and Pain?

Dear one, it may seem like you are solitary in your grief and pain, but I can assure you that you are seen, and there is someone who has already felt your sorrow and carried the weight you bear.

Yet it was our grief he bore, our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, for his own sins! But he was wounded and bruised for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace; he was lashed—and we were healed! We—every one of us—have strayed away like sheep! We, who left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet God laid on him the guilt and sins of every one of us! Isaiah 53:4-6 (TLB)

That loss that led you to unimaginable grief – God sees and whispers, “I welcome you to come close. Let me comfort you. My son, Jesus, came and gave his life so you no longer have to grieve alone without hope.”

Those words that cut you to the core and left shame in their wake – Jesus heard them and defies them with, “I made you; you are mine. Come to me in your weariness and brokenness and I will give you rest. Let me reveal to you the love through which I view you, and you will discover the masterpiece I formed in your mother’s womb. You are not forgotten or garbage to me. Let me show you who you are through my eyes, for you are my beloved.”

The cutting that no longer dulls the pain as it once did but only deepens the scars that mark both your body and soul – Jesus cries out to you, “I let them whip and cut me so you no longer need to cut yourself. Let me bear your unbearable pain. Let me enter your darkest places with you and reveal my heart for you within that place, and show you my power to restore light and hope, for you are mine.”

The shame and guilt that becomes weightier the longer you hide what you’ve done, or what another has done against you. Jesus lived, died, and arose to restore the life and hope shame and guilt have stolen from you. You have born the pain far too long. Jesus paid the penalty for that which you have no ability to cleanse yourself from. He knows. He cares. He loves you more lavishly than you could ever imagine. He alone has the power to remove the stain of your sin and the sins others stained you with. He can cleanse you and make you whiter than snow.

Jesus meets me daily in my grief and pain

Over sixteen years ago I buried my husband of twenty-five years after two years battling lung cancer. He suffocated to death, basically. Pain still pulsates through me when I think about it. Six months before his death I began having panic attacks. What they were I didn’t know, but they were horrific. It took years to become free from them.

Since his death, my life is completely different, and nothing I ever would have imagined.

Before his illness and death, Norman and I were raising our special needs son with non-verbal autism and mood disorder. We adopted Rick* at five, and he really never accepted me as his third mom. He’d been around this adoption thing before and so figured at some point his life would eventually turn upside down again. Norman was the steady one, and accepting him seemed to come more naturally for Rick. Rick often enjoyed playing control games with me more than Norman, so Norman’s illness and death only led to escalations that I could no longer easily control. After Norman’s death, I couldn’t care for Rick alone as it wasn’t safe for either of us. In my wildest dreams I never imagined having to remove Rick from our home. Despite the challenges, he was our son and we loved him dearly. The process was horrific and the trauma to both of us was tremendous.

After sixteen years, Rick still lives in a group home. Our relationship is better than it has ever been as we’ve both healed and grown a lot through those years. However, the pain and grief still linger in spaces I can’t fix. We’ve grown but both walk with a limp.

I remarried twelve years ago to a wonderful man who also lost his wife after six years of severe, in-and-out of the hospital illnesses. Gary’s two boys were also adopted from traumatic circumstances. His youngest was only six when his adoptive mom became ill and almost died the first time. She died three days before his twelfth birthday. I became third mom once again. Rejection became “normal” because who in their right mind would readily accept a third mom they didn’t want in the first place. Gary’s boys are now grown and on their own and we have a much better relationship, but they too still show signs of the pain and loss. We all do. It has taken years for each of us to find a new normal, and some of us are able to do that more easily than others. Our sons find it the hardest as their lives have been in hard places too many times with too many broken relationships to fully trust again.

Gary and I have been in ministry for the last three of our twelve years together. He pastors a small multicultural  congregation of Jesus followers in the southwest. It’s a life I never dreamed of, but it’s exactly where I want to be. It’s very difficult at times as the cultural differences are still something we always must work through. We still have so much to learn. But what we’ve been through has been used by God more times than I can imagine to pour out his love on people who have experienced, sometimes, more brokenness than we have. I guess what I’ve learned as I’ve walked through all this is that Jesus understands and calls me to his embrace over and over. It’s hard to explain what his embrace and presence feel like, but it’s like smelling peonies and hearing lullabies, and walking into the homiest house I can imagine full of all things warm and welcoming. During the hardest and not so hard, I have also been amazed at how he can pull off a miracle in my life, circumstance, or in another life when I just let go and let him do his thing in and through me.

What is your story?

On what type of journeys have grief and pain taken you? I have so much to learn, and am very willing to learn from my readers. If you would like to begin a dialogue, so we can learn from one another, please leave a comment and tell me a bit of your story. Also, please subscribe to get these posts when they come out. Since I last wrote, I continue to change how I view this blog, and want you, my reader, to play a part in what happens here.

Please, may I pray for you before we say “goodbye” for today? Lord, this precious one who has read this far, meet them in their need. May they be willing to take the chance that if they cry out to you for help, and are willing to yield to your gentle care, you will answer. You’ve answered me a million times in ways I could never deny either your existence or your compassion. Reveal yourself to them in this moment. Please. In Jesus’ name, amen.

This song shares Jesus’ heart for you better than I can

The writer and singer has his own story of grief and pain. Look it up. It may encourage you as well as it has me.

 

Should you wish to read a bit more about my grief journey

A Church Girl’s Desire to Relate to Doubters, Skeptics, and Atheists, found only on Soul Cries

Jesus cares about your pain and has the power to do something about it

See my servant, whom I uphold; my Chosen One in whom I delight. I have put my Spirit upon him; he will reveal justice to the nations of the world. He will be gentle—he will not shout nor quarrel in the streets. He will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the dimly burning flame. He will encourage the fainthearted, those tempted to despair. He will see full justice given to all who have been wronged. He won’t be satisfied until truth and righteousness prevail throughout the earth, nor until even distant lands beyond the seas have put their trust in him. Isaiah 42:1-4

 

I Just Want To Be Known and Loved

I Just Want To Be Known and Loved

Do you long to be loved because you are known, and not because someone only wants something from you?

Before my first husband passed, one of the last things he said to me was, “I wish we had more time to get to know one another.” We’d been married just over twenty-five years, but to me his words meant the world. We had both loved one another but often spent more time assuming what we knew than sitting down and becoming known.

I just want to be known and loved

Jesus looks deeper than what others see

Too many in the religious world assume we know someone by their surroundings, their actions, or the way they think and respond. For too long I judged the same. I’m grateful Jesus doesn’t. Jesus sees all that’s happened that led you to where you are today. In that, he knows why you think the way you do, and the turmoil that causes you to cry out to really be known and loved, way down deep. Without the judgement.

He remembers all the times you thought love finally arrived only to experience it was just another cheap shot by someone who only wanted your body.

Jesus isn’t like all the others

There’s a story in the Bible about a woman whom Jesus insisted on meeting, although he knew his fellow Jews, and even his own disciples would frown. She wasn’t even someone her own people wanted to associate with. She felt alone, unknown, and unloved.

The Bible states that Jesus went out of his way to meet this unnamed woman. He knew she’d be at the well, alone, battling the heat. He also knew why she chose this unusual time of day. He waited by the well until after his disciples left to get some lunch as he wanted to speak with her alone. He knew his disciples were discovering who he was and why he came, but also knew they had so far to go. They wouldn’t understand, and so he sat alone, waiting for her to arrive.

She sauntered toward the well wrapped up in her own thoughts. Suddenly she noticed the man sitting quietly and so cautiously walked toward the well, approaching as though she were a dear awaiting a trap. She’d never seen this man before, and she could tell by his dress and demeanor that he was a Jew. Jews hated Samaritans, and she didn’t even consider herself an upstanding Samaritan. Yet she had to draw from the well for her day’s needs, so she guessed she’d have to deal with whatever this man dished out.

New Mexico mountain scene

Jesus already knows and loves you

She expected curses and hate-filled words, for even a Jewish man would understand why she was there so late in the day. Yet, his first remarks were kindly asking her for a drink. She instantly shot back, “Why would a Jew ask a Samaritan for anything? We all have no questions about what you Jews think of us Samaritans. Nor do we have better to say about Jews.”

Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.”

“But sir, you don’t have a rope or a bucket,” she said, “and this well is very deep. Where would you get this living water? And besides, do you think you’re greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his animals enjoyed?”

Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”

 “Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me this water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to get water.”

Jesus then responded in a way that totally caught the woman off-guard.

“Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her.

“I don’t have a husband,” the woman replied.

Jesus said, “You’re right! You don’t have a husband—for you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now. You certainly spoke the truth!”

Jesus isn’t offering you a new religion but a relationship

Stunned, the woman replied that Jesus must be a prophet, because he knew things no stranger would know. Suddenly she realized that if he was truly a Jewish prophet, he would be able to answer her long-held questions about why there was such a divide between the Jews and Samaritans. Jesus knew her questions were  valid, but chose not to debate with her. His purpose for meeting her wasn’t to hound her to accept the Jewish religion, or to debate whether her religious beliefs were right or wrong. Rather, he wanted to offer her a new way of life not based on certain religious dogma, but upon a relationship with the God who made her and knew her all along.

[Jesus answered] “…God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”

The woman said, “I know the Messiah is coming—the one who is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Then Jesus told her, I am the Messiah!” [The one whom God promised would come for the purpose of setting captives free.]

The woman was so excited that she left her water jar behind and ran back to the village to tell her fellow Samaritans,

“Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could he possibly be the Messiah?”

New Mexico scene

I too have experienced being loved and known by Jesus

I too, like this woman have met Jesus, the one who knows everything I am and loves me anyway. And like this woman, I have also experienced his power to uncover my shame and free me from it’s hold by his lavish love. I can without question tell you that Jesus longs to visit you where you are. He’s willing to meet you in your

  • Rejection, and offer you a place in his forever family
  • Loneliness, and fill you with a belonging you have never experienced
  • Questions, and offer you a life you may not yet understand, but a good life beyond your current comprehension
  • Anger, and grant you healing
  • prison cell – whether physical, emotional, or spiritual, and extend to you his key to freedom, without the hangover, the aftermath, or the numbing

He’s not put off by your surroundings, your (fill in the blank), or your past. He’s madly in love with you and offers you a place of standing in his kingdom of light, right now, if you will give him your allegiance. It’s as simple as asking him to give you the power to turn from your current state and make you new. At that very instant, you will become a member of his kingdom, for he turns no one away. Ever.

May I pray for you? Dear Lord, I may not know this one who’s reading, but you do. You know everything about them, and you love them extravagantly. May they in this moment experience your love and power to free them from from their dark place into your amazing light. You are so good and kind, and I ask they would feel your presence right now. Draw them to yourself, as you have a million time drawn me in my pain. I also ask, that if they choose to give their allegiance to you, that you would lead them to others who’ve experienced your gifts to teach them. Thank you. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Jesus sees everything about you. He's offering you a new life, in a new way, and relationship with him him truth. He's the King and has the power to change things.

Here is a song I recently discovered that may bless you today:

 

Please feel free to contact me as well.

All the quotes above are from John 4:1-28 (NLT)

Why Would Anyone Choose the God of the Bible?

Why Would Anyone Choose the God of the Bible?

Our world regularly decries the God of the Bible as at least a myth, and at most a monster, begging the question, “Why would anyone choose the Bible?” This article takes the stories of those who chose to follow the God of the Bible despite the odds.

NATIVE AMERICANS CHOOSE JESUS CHRIST DESPITE PERSECUTION

My husband pastors a small rural church comprised of mostly Native American followers of Jesus. They choose to follow Jesus Christ despite generations of oral stories proclaiming the atrocities of being forced to convert to “Christianity”. This time no one forced them.

Some congregation members tell stories about a time prior to choosing to follow Jesus. They readily joined in with family members who mocked those who followed Jesus Christ. Years later, finding no hope themselves, they too cried out to Jesus and discovered why their relatives had been willing to endure persecution for their faith. They too now suffer willingly for their faith in Christ.

Why would people choose to leave their Native religion and face persecution to follow Jesus Christ?

A YOUNG MAN CONTEMPLATING SUICIDE EXPERIENCES INSTANT TRANSFORMATION

As a child, my husband’s parents would send him and his siblings to church but they didn’t attend. There he would hear about the love of Jesus that included the realities of hell. Once he got into high school, however, he stopped attending church regularly, rejecting all he’d been taught as a child.

At the age of nineteen, a severe breakup with his fiancé left him suicidal. He recalls that those Sunday School stories of hell kept him from driving into bridge abutments “moments before steal hit concrete”.

Unable to find relief, in desperation he finally cried out to God, “If you’re real, just give me a reason to live and I’ll do anything for you!” Instantly he felt an overwhelming peace. He soon found a Bible-believing church who loved and taught him the Word. He grew in his faith and eventually went into the ministry.

How could someone’s life be so dramatically changed in an instant?

POST TRAUMA, FILLED WITH QUESTIONS, HE CHOOSES GOD AGAIN

My husband and his first wife spent twenty-six years together in ministry. In their twentieth year of marriage, his wife’s health began to deteriorate, and after six years of illness she passed away one night while he was at work. He found her the next morning, his boys waking to him screaming her name over and over as he attempted to revive her with CPR.

Having seen people miraculously healed throughout their years of ministry, he strongly believed she too would be healed. So when she passed, he experienced intense doubt and questions to the point that he left the ministry. Although he struggled with feelings of abandonment by God, he now states that he also found solace in spending time with God through prayer and worship.

Two years after her death, and four years after the death of my first husband, Gary and I were married.

Years later Gary realized that as her health failed and his workload intensified, he spent far less time in God’s Word, the Bible, which contributed to his “crisis of faith”. He now believes that had he spent more time with God’s Word back then, his crisis of faith would not have been as severe. Not because God was angered, but because he now realizes that his time with the Lord may have strengthened him during those extremely difficult year after her death.

A year ago, God opened a door for us to return to ministry. Gary now readily proclaims that although he still has questions, serving God fulfills him as much as it did before his family’s trauma.

Why would someone who’s endured such trauma choose to serve God after all they’ve been through?

Religion says earn your life. Secular society says create your life. Jesus says,

WHY I DAILY CHOOSE TO FOLLOW JESUS

My life experiences have included:

  • Feeling desperately alone as a teenager
  • Losing my rock and comfort of twenty-five years of marriage to cancer at forty-eight years of age
  • Experiencing intense loneliness while raising a child with autism and mood disorder

I experienced such feelings of loss and depression in my pre-teen years, that had I not already known Jesus, I wouldn’t have made it. I have often said that without Jesus I would have either committed suicide, ended up on drugs, or flung myself at any man that came along. Throughout the loneliness that wracked the years I raised our son with autism, and then through the pain of losing my husband, I also was able to remain steady through the peace and presence of God. Had Jesus not chosen me as a child to walk with him, and had I not chosen throughout life to continue to walk with him despite the intense pain, I would have a very different life now. I seldom deal with depression and anxiety. I feel fulfilled. I continue to grow in my relationship with the God who loves and cares for me.

God longs for you to experience the transformed life through Jesus Christ that we have found. A life worth living despite the trials and struggles. I would even say that if this interests you at all, he’s calling you to cry out to him for help.

Maybe you’ve cried out to God before, to no avail. Would you now be willing to yield as my husband once did when he cried, “God I’ll do anything if you’ll give me a reason to live”? Why not try? If you’re willing to honestly yield as Gary once did proclaiming, “if you’re real, give me a reason to live and I’ll do anything you ask” God will listen and respond. Jesus said so right here:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Wish to read more about this Jesus and my story with him? Here are a couple more articles to consider:

Facing Loneliness (This is a longer than normal post)

Caution, Emotions at Play!

I have also written at length about my experiences raising our son in a chapter of “Life Repurposed” by Michelle Rayburn. My story is found on page 123 “God in My Loneliness”.

You may find comfort from this article about Jesus’ interactions with two blind men who desperately wanted their sight.

Suddenly, Today is So Very Different