Broken Open by Teary Gratitude

I’m often befuddled by how impossible it is to write on the experience I’ve had countless times — joy in suffering.  It frustrates me that I cannot seem to communicate how it works.  

So I’m trying again.  

It seems that there is a place for deep gratitude amid great suffering, and when we contemplate that gratitude is possible in the worst pain, it then becomes possible.  I might even venture to say that with great suffering there is also the entry of deep gratitude.  But this I think is not a universal experience.  

Joined with the coalescence of gratitude and suffering — their being together in the same person and season — is this idea of being broken open by pain, rather than simply being broken by it.  

I recall those times 20-22 years ago when I felt very broken by what my life had become.  These times, many nights, and certainly some whole days, I was a sodden mess, but not always without hope.  

The reality of my being resurrected from the pain of my life seemed real — I had hope — but my life was still so full of pain.  I had hope, though there were times I simply gave up for an hour or a day.  

Somehow as I gave way to teary gratitude — recognising I wasn’t alone, that God was with me, that I knew God was for me and not against me — I felt a perfect and paradoxical 50/50 mix of being afflicted and being healed.  

And there have been so many single days in each month since when the black dog would return, inconsolable would I be on those days!  But, always have I been resurrected mostly the following day.  

This is why I sensed that God was with me, for me and not against me.  It was because there was the deepest meaning in my deepest suffering.  

I do feel inept and embarrassed to talk about such things when others simply for the life of them cannot attest to such an experience.  I wish everyone could feel that sense of God being absolutely present and real in the grips of the worst pain on this earth.  

All I can say is, when you’re trapped in the pain of an excruciating season, invite gratitude into your heart if it isn’t already forcing its way in.  

Allow that gratitude to soften your heart in thanks that seems bizarre.  

When you do this, you may find you’re not simply broken by your suffering, but you begin to be broken open by it in a way to be healed. 

~~~~ 

Acknowledgement: in part, the penny dropped when I watched this recent video from John Ortberg.

The Gratitude-Entitlement Continuum

Entitlement is a funny word.  In a concrete sense, it depicts what we deserve — what we’re entitled to.  But when we take the word from noun to verb — from “you’re entitled [to this]” to “I feel entitled [in an absolute sense]” — we run in a cross-grain direction against life and we become a nemesis, an avenger, to all.  

Against all this is gratitude — that sense of being that feels absolutely NOT entitled.  It operates at the other end of an imaginary continuum, where feeling unworthy and undeserving can be attributable to a joy that comes only from God — where we acknowledge that everything we receive is a gift.  

Paul puts it plainly like this in 1 Corinthians 4:7:

“What do you have that you did not receive?  And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?”  

Everything we have we received.  And only for a short time!  So why do we foolishly think what we have is ours?  And why do we covet more?  Well, of course, it’s natural to strive for “more for me.”  It’s evidence that there is something wrong inside us for which we need God.

Everything we receive comes from outside us.  It came from another person or situation, or in our life’s case or in the world’s case, these came from God.  

The only right response is to be thankful.  

If we can receive everything with thanks, we live gratefully.  

Turned upon itself, living thankfully is the result of a humble joy that attributes everything that one has as a gift; gifts received and gifts given from us as the overflow out of the abundance of joy that we enjoy.   

This is where entitlement is a very unwise way of living.  

When we feel entitled, we feel as if we’re deserving.  It comes across as selfish and is selfish.  It steals joy from others and ourselves.  It robs us and others of peace.  And if we genuinely feel entitled, we won’t be motivated by the joy and peace of others.  And we won’t be a gift to others but a burden.  

Entitlement and gratitude exist on a continuum and both are at the extremes.  

Let me leave you with a life-changing wisdom from M. Scott Peck:

“Life is difficult.  This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths.  It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it.  Once we truly know that life is difficult — once we truly understand and accept it — then life is no longer difficult.  Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.

“Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult.  Instead they moan more less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy.”

— M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled, p. 13.

But, life is difficult.  And with an entitled mindset we only make life harder for ourselves and others — anger begets anger, and fear begets fear.  But with gratitude for the abundance we have, we make a difficult life just a little easier because we have not only accepted what we cannot change, we have embraced everything as a gift — even suffering, because in suffering well we find meaning.  

While anger begets anger,
and fear begets fear — in entitlement,
kindness begets kindness,
as peace begets peace — in gratitude.  

Being grateful comes from a humble certitude that abides by the reality that life is difficult, yet it is full of reasons to be thankful.  

Being grateful comes from accepting that everything we have we received — none of it is due to our doing alone.  

Being grateful will keep us from being entitled.  

The Humility of Facing Oneself

Encountering moments of truth is not always a pleasant experience.  One such recent moment I was acting out of self-righteous hurt in a relatively private (i.e., safe) setting.  Thankfully, the response of another person — or their lack of response — was enough for me to genuinely reflect and rethink my attitude and approach to a certain situation.  

What a gift it was.  But in turning or returning to God, in suffering the ‘shame’ of crucifying my flesh, there was the ugliness of not getting my own way.  It never feels good at the time, but it is the right thing to do.  

Here is a paradox — only as we face our self-righteous attitude and admit we’re wrong are we shown a better way, God’s wise way.  Humility is the requirement of seeing truth.  But when we choose to remain in the “I’m right, they’re wrong” attitude we remain self-justified and deluded — we have failed humility’s test.  And worse, not only do we suffer, our relationships (others) suffer.  

It takes humility to see where we are going wrong.  

It’s a human trait to go wrong.  To go wrong daily and even several times daily.  It’s a human trait to be ruled by biases, to be deceived into thinking others need correcting and we, ourselves, are of noble intent.  

A positive paradox occurs in the phenomenon of being humble enough to see where we’re wrong and where we can right our thinking and responding.  

By and large, this is the Christian walk — getting the log out of our own eye and ensuring wrongs are reconciled and we’re making amends where we need to.  

The humility of facing self reveals godly Christian character.  It shows the capacity for insight, and just enough insight to take responsibility for what we are responsible for without taking responsibility for what others are responsible for — with an accepting empathy that each person has their responsibility and that none of us can be protected from the consequences of our own actions.  

When two people have the capacity of humility to own their self-righteous wrong-going, there is such capacity for reconciling hurts and misunderstandings, even betrayals and more serious wrongs — if both have the humble ability to face and be honest with themselves.  

That is our straightest motive — to win oneself over to the truth.  Facing oneself is the simple work of humility.  

Living for the glory of God alone has its beginning and is fulfilled in honouring the truth, doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God (Micah 6:8). 

What Only Suffering Can Teach Us

Hebrews 12:2 says in part, “For the joy set before him he endured the cross.”  

The only time I knew my faith pleased God was when I responded the right way in suffering, and this was especially so when my heart attitude was humble, accepting with joy that I could bear the pain with God.  

Not that I can say that I’ve done this very often.  I’m sure God has blessed me with humility just enough to see His power that works for good for those who love Him and trust His goodness — who are called according to His good purpose.  

What I have seen and know to be true is worth stating.

It’s only when we suffer and respond well that we are blessed with the closest intimacy with God.  

It’s only we’ve chosen to be humbled by the suffering circumstances out of our control — and wisely so when we did it — that a deeper knowledge is afforded to us.  

We learn in these places of poverty of spirit that the lament of complaint and a calm acceptance can co-exist, or that we may vacillate between these, much as if we meander through the grief process.  

Suffering torches the prosperity gospel faith that if I do good and am good that all of life will be good for me.  It’s clear through the circumstances of life — grief will catch up with us eventually — that God desires to purge us of such an arrogant faith that we think we’re worthy only of blessing and every good thing we desire and that we’re saved from suffering.  

It appears to me that life is the other way around — that we are confirmed as the Lord’s anointed even as we wait on the Lord in our suffering.  I know as much, again, by the relatively few times I’ve looked up to God in the midst of pain and said, “Lord, You know best, I trust that You are good, and thank You that Your love rushes toward me even as this situation breaks me, and that I receive Your love most intimately when I run toward You when I would rather run away from my life.”  

There are relatively few Christians who attest to the depths of intimacy with God amid suffering, and that’s because such suffering is quite a raw phenomenon, and because when most people are there they resent it.  

The biblical witness is trustworthy and true.  When we’re suffering — whether it’s our fault or not — blessed indeed is the person who can roll with it, even to allow the suffering to crush them, for them to be broken open by the suffering rather than just be broken by it.  

Each life has a golden opportunity in suffering.  To accept the painful things about it that cannot be changed: the circumstance, how one got there, the unknown timeframe of the present and future suffering, and to learn to trust in what is perceived as an injustice that reactions of hurt, bitterness, and resentment are only to be expected, but to transcend these — even if regularly enough that we experience the intimacy with God and the power of His blessing.  

What is biblically true is this: the more we bear our crosses well, the more we participate in Christ’s suffering, the more we will glory in Christ’s resurrection.  

When James 1:2 says, “Consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds,” he backs it up with what God is able to reliably do in and through us when we suffer without always getting bitter and resentful.  

What Jesus was able to do perfectly — endure the cross — we can do much less perfectly, but we can do it, and when we do it we receive something only God in this world can give us.  

That is a joy for mourning, a beauty for ashes.  

Let us also not forget that what the world is silent about, the Bible majors on; the Bible has answers for us on HOW to suffer when we are afflicted.  Wise are we to heed its ancient counsel. 

Endurance by faith in future’s hope

22 years ago to these very days, days I did not know if I would or could endure, I did endure, one day at a time.  Those days, some darker than others, were the spiritual battle for and of my life.  

The enemy of life itself had beset my hope, yet what kept me alive at that time was the community of AA, then within months it was the community of God’s church in Christ, all of it underpinned by my daughters and my parents.  

Still I was beset in daily spiritual battles that the enemy would sometimes threaten to win.  And even when the enemy seemed to win, when defeat was a day’s experience, when I was broken again in teary lament, there always seemed to be the hope of a resurrection — which always did come to pass a day or days later.

I knew endurance by faith in future’s hope would keep me alive, surviving and sometimes thriving.  That faith in future’s hope was always there even if the strength of my hope when under attack made it seem that that hope was temporarily lost.  

The future hope was this: that I would receive the second chance at life God had promised me, that I would recover from the grief of having lost my first marriage, that I would become of good use in the hands of God, and ultimately live with joy, hope, and peace in my heart.  

22 years is a long time.  I can say that I have felt in the place of my realised future hope for nearly four years now.  

The beauty of the future hope that seems lodged deep in one’s heart is that somehow the darkness cannot conquer it; indeed, the darkness only seems only to reinforce it.  

What others may intend for our harm,
God uses for our good, ultimately,
if we don’t give up.  

This is an encouragement for the circumstantially broken to read.  I don’t need to apologise for writing to the person broken by their circumstances.  If only one reads this and derives hope, my aim is accomplished.

The person broken by their circumstances needs hope, because when that person gets through a dark day, knowing with a hint of gratitude they had sufficient strength in their weakness to do so, they know they can do it again when attacked again… and again… and again… for as long as it takes until they arrive at their future hope.  

What got me through was many things, loving community, a purpose to live for, specialist support when required, practicing acceptance of those things I cannot change, all of this underpinned by faith.  

The final thing to say is this: endure by faith in your future hope, for it will arrive at the right time if you do not give up.  

That First-Love Gift

I never thought in my hardest, loneliest days – 22 years ago now – that those would also be the times I felt closest to God.  

Not that I’m not close to God today.  I just recognise that I’m ever clamouring to get back to that time, spiritually, when I absolutely needed God every day, and many of those days it was one moment at a time.  

Many of those first days
I had nothing but God.  

I had my daughters and my parents,
but I also had a lot of time alone.

God was front and centre and proved
His presence with me every time.

But with time, and especially as life becomes easier, our love for God cools.  I know that God understands and accepts the ‘cooling’ of our love for Him over time.  Perhaps we don’t love Him less, maybe it’s a refining of our love.  

The tension in us to get back to the first-love status is all that is needed.  

I call it a tension because on the one hand we want what we had in the past, and somehow it impels us forward in the future.  And on the other hand, accepting that we’d always want that heart-aflame passion means, we affirm those who are there – those on fire for God.  They fan aflame our faith by the Holy Spirit.  The young in faith are a gift that we need.

Wanting what we had honours the past.  I never thought when I was really broken that I had something that I would want to reclaim in the future.  

I guess part of my hope back then was that God would truly use some of that brokenness for His glory.  And God has really honoured that.

Somehow, I’m hoping that there is someone reading this who’s right there in the beginning of their journey of recovery who needs this encouragement.  There is something I envy about where you’re at!  

Your spiritual proximity to God is something that isn’t always there when you’ve overcome the tyranny of circumstantial brokenness – when life has righted itself years or a decade or two on.  

There is a real beauty in a life full of lived purpose for the things suffered initially.  I love living out of the purpose God gave me more than two decades ago.

Be encouraged in your rock bottom state, that pressing into God right where you’re at, when you feel you’ve got nothing, is the absolute nexus, the prime position, to receive Jesus’ love.  

A decade or two or three on we’ve been through a lot and perhaps we’re worn down a little with life, or our love for God has cooled because we’ve begun to take what He’s done for us a little for granted.  

The sanctity of the first-love is precious, we’re receptive and more open to revelation.  Our insight is piqued, and our hope is strong because we’re weak.  

The sanctity of the first-love is precious also because we believe in the miraculousness of God, that God lives and moves and walks faithfully with us every step of the way.  

That first-love is a gift that we may feel is somewhere attainable but also somewhere on the horizon — visible, even touchable.  It’s enchanting and part of the hope we have to remain connected to the Vine which is Jesus.  

To have had that first-love — to be set on reclaiming it — is the greatest gift.

Beautiful Wisdom Parenting

I spoke at church last Sunday on the call placed on Barnabas and Saul prior to them being sent to the nations of the world (Acts 13:1-3), essentially taking the message of Christ to whole societies that has absolutely civilised the world.  

A ‘call’ is our innate purpose — something as Christians we receive from God.  

Yet, each of us is absolutely called — perhaps not to spread a message en masse — but certainly we all have a purpose because of the lives we have.  All our lives — whatever faith we have — has purpose, and a purpose: a calling.

I don’t need to say that God gave us our lives and placed us where we are, in our discrete situations, with our life experiences, with the families we have.  Much of this happened for us, whilst some of this we, ourselves, create, have created, and continue to plan for in the creation.  

Allow me to hone in on family — parenting and family leadership, to be precise.  Many, many of us — perhaps even the majority of us — are called into this place of making our contribution to society, and living our lives, so that others (not only ourselves) will prosper.

Indeed, the call on all our lives is to serve others, whether we have leadership or not.  And this is never more poignant than in the family with parenting and grandparenting.  I can say that service is our purpose because of the evidence on our own souls when we have provided service (when we have been kind, patient, gracious, have offered space, etc.) — that good feeling we receive is from God.

Beautiful wise parenting is all the love languages sprinkled as blessings in the lives given to us to love.  

It’s kind words, spoken with belief and authenticity to encourage; the lifeblood of the courage we all need through kind words spoken that say, “You are enough… I’m with you… you can do this thing ahead of you.”

It’s patience executed with grace, absorbing stress as a gift to and for the other.

It’s that quality time spent focused on the other person without distraction, with eye contact, listening, enjoying one another’s presence, turning phones off or leaving them in another room.  Quality time has that intransigent value of being timeless — it doesn’t mean hours on end, but it can be a priceless moment of matchless value, chock full of spiritual nourishment.  Life with lots of these moments with our loved ones.   

It’s beautiful acts of diligent service — where it adds value in the other person’s life, not to enable sloth, but to help where it would be significantly appreciated, but never done for our reward — never done with a string attached.

It’s appropriate physical touch — defined by the other as appropriate and sought.  Through the ages and stages of children’s lives, needs and boundaries change, their physical autonomy must be respected and adhered to, and keeping them safe never changes.  Loving our children and grandchildren requires wisdom and mastery especially around physical touch — everyone’s body is their own domain — and knowing when a hug or simple proximity (sitting and being together) are often powerful and necessary ways to love.  

All of the foregoing are gifts to our children, but there are physical resources and lovely things that can and ought to be given to nourish their lives.  

Being a parent and a grandparent is the most privileged and blessed thing, but with this comes the responsibility to love them well.  We won’t always get it right, so being quick and sincere in apologising is crucial.  Ultimately, WE as parents and grandparents are to be safe people who our children and grandchildren FEEL love them.

That’s the thing with
the beautiful wisdom of love —
the OTHER person gets to define
if it felt like love or not.  

Us being open to this feedback is fundamental.

It cannot be said better than Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails.”