Tag Archives: suffering

July 23, 2012 · 9:53 am

Survivor Stories…why the world needs them

I read an amazing story by a blogger who happened to be in the Aurora AMC theater on the night of the terrible shooting. It’s worth reading.

As I read her account and her insistence on trusting in a merciful God in the midst of evil, I thought of the hundreds of people suffering crippling grief over the loss of the dozen lives and the injuries sustained by so many others.

I thought of the retelling of the events of that night, how over the next months the story will be told over and again by so many voices. Questions raised and answered, no answers, more questions.

I thought of the wounds and the healing and the honoring of innocent lives.

I thought of how many of us aren’t affected at all because we’re too busy, too detached, to interested in our own lives and entertainment and work and commitments.

My family’s life was also interrupted by the selfish, lawless act of another person. I suffered multiple morbidity injuries and deal with pain daily because someone else broke the law and drove impaired and hit our van. I don’t know the particular horror of that Aurora theater, but I do know the strangeness of surviving. I know the gratitude of finding yourself still breathing and the need for answers and justice. I know the long road to recovering physically and emotionally.

I do know that evil steps in but that does not, in any way disprove the existence of a good God. It simply proves the existence of evil.

During the talk on Sunday at Life Center, pastor Joe focused on two words in the middle of the story about the blind beggar, Bartimaeus, who met Jesus near Jericho on the road into Jerusalem. {Mark 10:46-52}

“Jesus stopped.”

Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem, where he knew what awaited. This journey would be later called the triumphal entry {see Mark 11}. He would enter the city on a young donkey, celebrate passover with his disciples, pray in the garden of Gethsemene and finally be betrayed.

His death by crucifixion was impending, just days ahead. Yet, when the blind beggar persistently called after Jesus and asked to see again, Jesus stopped. The King James says “he stood still”.

He became still at the single voice of one man and turned all of his focus on that one man who called his name.

Jesus could have pressed forward, eager for the excitement of his entry into Jerusalem. He could have marched sternfaced ahead, overwhelmed with the burden to come. He could have busied himself with the crowd. But he stopped and listened, focused on Bartimaeus.

Jesus stood still, heard him and healed him. He gave salvation to someone who called out from the darkness of his life, “Jesus!”.

That it the way Jesus responds to all of us, whether we are survivors of the horrors of shooting or an accident or war or whether we are the survivors of life. If we’ve suffered abuse, rejection, criticism, hate and we have lost our vision, we can call out and he will stop to hear us.

The phrase in the text that leapt of the page to me was this:

“I want to see again.” {vs 51, NIV}

Somehow, some way Bartimaeus’ life was interrupted and permanently altered and he lost his eyesight.

Whatever plans Bartimaeus or his family had for him were inalterably ruined. His vocation deleted. Any marriage would be called off. Any course he may have taken, any success he may have known, any value in life he may have relished was stripped of him. Perhaps an illness or accident stole away his sight; perhaps he suffered a congenital condition and his eyesight diminished. However it occurred, the man was left impoverished, sightless a blight on society, a drain on resources, a ruined man.

Sometimes evil steps in and takes something it has no right to take. Evil is a thief.

Injustice of any shade leaves behind broken dreams, broken hearts, crippled souls. It doesn’t seem fair.

Sometimes it’s horrifying.

It isn’t right. But, Bartimaeus, and you and I, we all have a choice when evil steps in and in its wake the brokeness impedes on living: call out after the savior, or not.

Trust in his goodness, his justice, or not.

Allow him to heal our hearts and reveal the life he has had planned for us, or not.

I have ended many sentences with the word “again” these past several months.

I want to live a day without pain…again.

I want to sleep without an icepack on my leg…again.

I want to run…again.

I want to feel normal…again.

In the weeks following the accident, after I’d come home and tried to resume the normal routine of my life, I was so discouraged because the routine was going on all around me, but I was sidelined. Benched. Leg up propped and iced, I waited while my body worked hard to recover from the trauma. Healing was happening within me, but I felt like so much had happened to me that rendered me helpless and I was sad and troubled. I wanted to be well…again.

I’m sure that something has interrupted your life, too, and caused you to say “again”.  Have you turned to calling on Jesus? Are you craving peace restored? Are you starving for joy? Are you desperate for the freedom of forgiveness?

In a society that ostracized the handicapped and diseased, Bartimaeus could only beg for his daily ration. How many months, years maybe, had God provided for and sustained him for this very moment when he would hear Jesus’ arrival at the city gate? Why had God allowed Bartimaeus to be blinded and begging anyway? What kind of God would allow that?

A merciful one.

A God who knew that generations of people would read the seven verses in the book of Mark dedicated to Bartimaeus’ encounter with the Messiah, Jesus. The disciples and onlookers that day were forced to see Bartimaeus as Jesus saw him, forced to stop and care about a less-than-nobody handicapped homeless man.

By reading the story in Mark chapter 10, you and I and millions of others gain greater understanding:

- We understand that Bartimauus was a victim of circumstance, that he was ripped off of a natural, human right: his eyesight.

- We get to glimpse through this story the concern that the savior of the world had shown to this solitary man.

-  We get to read the account of a survivor of evil and his life-changing encounter with Jesus.

- We can corporately acknowledge and agree that while the world may kick us when we’re down, may take away the things and people most precious to us, the world may not take away our hope.

Evil may not steal our faith.

Bartimaeus was a survivor and his story was told each day while he begged alms at the gate to Jerusalem. The idea of Jesus, the promised Messiah, perhaps sustained his faith, however small. Bartimaeus kindled hope in his heart despite the darkness of his life. He believed that if he had seen once, he may be able to see again, with the touch of Jesus.

That is why a survivor’s story is so necessary. Because there is darkness in this world and it looms at the door of our lives, threatening to sweep in at any moment and overtake us.

But the presence of evil confirms the concept of good. Those of us who believe in a good, just, merciful God who created all we see and understand and don’t understand must band our survival stories together in the volume that will continue to call out, Jesus!

Why?

Because there are others in the dark, lost and begging and wondering ‘why’. They need us to stand still and hear them and offer them Jesus. 

He is our only hope.

Linked at these great communities:

Michelle DeRusha at Graceful

LL at Seedlings in Stone

Laura Bogess at Playdates at the Wellspring

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May 17, 2012 · 11:46 am

May{Be} I’ll Embrace the Purpose of Pain

The trowel rests still in my hand and I sit to rest my leg, the broken and healing leg that throbs throughout the day. My fingers feel the pulse in the place on my shin where they grafted new bone into the break that wouldn’t heal: it thrums angry against the still-red perfectly drawn incision scar.

But I know a secret about healing that I didn’t know before the accident. In my pre-accident life, I’d never had stitches or broken a bone or required surgery. I had my health, however little I thought of it. But this secret of bone healing, of understanding just a little bit more of this “fearfully and wonderfully made” body of mine has changed my spiritual comprehension.

The secret is this: the swelling heals. The inflammation brings freshly oxygenated blood to deep parts of my leg that need it most. The rhythmic pulse-beat that I touch with fingertips tells me healing is happening.

Yes, it hurts. No, I don’t like it. But because of the doctor’s skillful repair, I can break from my tasks knowing that the throbbing has a purpose.

As I sit, I survey the garden that encircles me. I see newness everywhere.

I see more plants than I’ve planted, seedlings and starts of perennials competing for groundspace with weeds. I see at least ten new raspberry canes. I see the need to share with others.

I see truth written in green sprout script across black dirt page: growth takes place in the dark spaces of garden soil, that melange of composting death that feeds new life.

And in the repeated trilling of the birds I hear an echo of the invitation of Christ again, “Come to me and I will give you rest for your souls.” {Matthew 11:28}

Ah, sweet rest. I long for the absence of this pain. I try to recall how I felt before my every movement was framed in discomfort.

But rest alone creates atrophy. This secret, too, I learned from healing wounds.

If I never rose to move the leg with two dozen fractures, it would waste away into a lifeless limb, useless to its designed purpose. It’s in the labor of rehabilitation, in the inflammation of bearing weight again that my leg will heal. When Jesus’ gentle invitation arrives at my heart’s doorstep, it’s an invitation of purposeful labor: walk with me, take my yoke of burden upon your spirit, plow the hard soil of life with me and learn how and where and why. He extends an invitation to draw close to God through living alongside Christ {Matthew 11:27}.

It is easier and it is lighter, but it’s not carefree and painless.

The yoke is easier because Jesus’ shoulders are offered to bear the weight of the tilling through life and he knows the way we should go. And most importantly, Jesus, who is intimate with the omniscient Father, knows the purpose of our pain.

Rest is not the absence of labor or an eternity-long spiritual vacation, but purpose for our souls.

 I rise to the work again. Trowel in hand I scratch the surface of the soil.

I loosen the hard-pack left by winter, turn over the debris of tattered leaves and bury them into the dark places where they will crumble and give up the nutrients trapped in their square-walled cells. I cut the soil and bring air and light to the garden bed. I participate in the process, in the purpose of the seasonal, cyclical song of nature. My heartbeat finds its way to scars again, but I smile when I feel the rhythm because I understand something of soul-rest and of the purpose of pain and the gift that it is to new life.

***

Dear one,

I know there is a unique story in your pain today. Your pain may be physical, like mine, or it may be deep, still-tender soul bruising from your past, or confusion or rejection or loneliness. Won’t you respond to the invitation to seek out the purpose of this painful season? Won’t you take the hand of Christ and strap yourself to his grace and walk the hard way with him? He loves us so….

Blessings,

Alyssa

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April 13, 2012 · 3:49 pm

Battle Songs

Sometimes the lines are scary.

Image

The ones that draw creases near my eyes, that point out that I’m tired. Broken, exhausted.

Sometimes, you want to duck. You’re wary of where the next bomb might drop.

A broken-down car seems like a small thing, right? But it’s the car that takes you to work, takes your family to church, provides a way to the store for groceries and takes your kids to the park.

Job loss is a bit bigger of a deal. But in the big scheme of things, it’s just a job, right? But how does a man feed his family, pay his mortgage, offer any kind of security without work?

And then there’s sickness. When the broken-down state of this world invades your very cells and you are dependent on medication, bracing for a better prognosis, doing all you can but knowing it’s not really up to you.

As I lay here in bed, recovering from surgery and elevating my leg above my heart. I pray. I think of the facebook posts that reveal frustration, pain, loneliness and loss. Little cries for help called status updates.

I think of conversations I’ve had with those I love and the places where the talk settles: kids growing up and growing apart from Jesus, marriages that can’t flourish because trust easily erodes like sandcastle walls, job interviews and unmet expectations.

We’re all of us battle weary. Even when we praise, even when we look to heaven and really mean it (the praising and the singing to God) we praise from the trenches. Even lives that look shiny and clean and enviable are touched and smeared and marred by the sinfulness of this world.

We need a tidal wave of grace.

A total drenching of Jesus’ love.

A free-fall into the depths of true goodness.

We need to lie broken on the beach, even if to faintly sing back to God the song of his love.

He will pick us up. Even if in pieces.

He will hear the faint song and he will take us home.

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Come in, O strong and deep love of Jesus, like the sea at the flood in the spring tides,

cover all my powers, drown all my sins, wash out all my cares, lift up my earth-bound soul,

and float it right up to my Lord’s feet, and there let me lie, a poor broken shell, washed up by His love, having no virtue or value,

and only venturing to whisper to Him that if He will put his ear to me,

He will hear within my heart faint echoes of the vast waves of His own love which have brought me where it is my delight to lie, even at His feet forever. (Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, April 12)

My heart is like wax. It is melted…” {Psalm 22:14}

Broken shells still sing of the sea.

Does Jesus’ love sing from me?

Do parched lips, though weakly, declare

My joy in His faithful, loving care?

Does my voice, cracked but loyal, say,

“Jesus met me on the shore today?”

Am I content to be a broken shell, and motionless lie

Within the hand of Him that for me did die;

And sing to him songs of love and praise

Small echoes of the sacrifice he gave?

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March 20, 2012 · 10:51 am

Scars of My Salvation

I have a blister on my right hand.

It’s a round and angry scarlet wound. I hope it leaves a mark. I want to remember how it got there, remember the day, the very hour of the day, the slant of the sun and the brush of the spring wind across my hair.

I want to recall without the haze of time casting gauzy skirts across my memory like a careless dancer.

I need to hold fast to that moment that I was born again.

A pregnancy season rubs its memorial into skin stretched tight over full, round belly – the marks that remain, shiny and white-pink tell the story of life. Unsightly to some, they mark the birth of life, the beginning of something utterly profound and mysterious. They mark motherhood and tell a tale of hope and future.

Other scars–and I have them–mark the passage of different stories.

Tales of horror and healing, of late night wreckage scattered on black highway, of swirling lights flashing red and blue, of crying children and a mother who cannot hold them. Tales of thrumming helicopter blades and the glimmer of a precision blade held fast in a skilled hand, of thread and staples that hold life together when it seems to be coming apart like a fragile bit of lace.

But this blister, this place rubbed raw is a wound that must be kept with its sisters scarring this body of mine. This vessel of growing and birthing and suffering and surviving.

This small planet of pain I wear on my hand is proof that I made it this far.

It came from gardening without gloves.

Warmth popped into a March day like a dear old friend for tea and begged me out to the garden. I had a physical therapy appointment scheduled, but I cancelled and set up an altogether different therapy regimen for the day. Instead of the leg workout, I’d walk across the yard several times. Instead of the ab workout, I’d scrape rake tines over stubborn weeds and dry clumps of leaves and form piles.

I needed to see the familiar green spikes of the daffodil, the bare ruby-colored nubs of peonies pushing through.

I needed life in the version that only a Northwest spring could deliver.

So I raked and yanked and worked. I lived. I live.

And in the cooling air of late afternoon, when the sun began to look sleepy as it hung over the tops of the pines, my hand throbbed. It beat with the pulse of a heart that has yet to stop.

It pounded, sore and yelled in a silent voice: this is what it means to be born again.

To taste and know certain death but instead be gifted with life, with more, with pulse-pounding joy and interminable sorrow, with freedom and movement and prayer and the love of good people. To feel.

This is fellowship, this blistering wound of a life lived raw and real, full.

I want a scar from the day I was born again.

///

Do you have scars like this? Wounds from salvation’s touch? Do you embrace them or hide them? Do you tell their story?

Linked with Journey to Epiphany,  Shanda, Just Write

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March 12, 2012 · 1:05 am

Honey of Communion {Sunrise in The Trauma Ward}

“In the lion of trial we find the honey of communion.” Charles Spurgeon {1834-1892}

“Pull the curtain back,” I whispered.

Isabella, my daughter, uncurled her body from the vinyl foldout bed the hospital provided for overnight guests, stretching as she stepped toward the expansive picture window.

The view from my fifth-floor trauma ward window was stunning.

We faced a faded indigo southern sky infused with a predawn glow pricked by black pine and maple tree silhouettes now paling into green.

photo-bella santos

Sunrise again.

The honeyed light cut through sleepy low clouds and touched the tips of nodding trees and quiet rooftops, like a mother brushing a stray curl from her child’s forehead.

Even the busy hospital was quieted by early morning. It seemed we were in on a secret, as if we were invited to an invitation-only premier.

I pressed a button and raised the back of my bed, adjusted my pillows and waited….

I am guest-posting at the (in)courage community today! Click here to read the rest of the post at this great on-line community brought to you by Dayspring!

Bless you, friends!

Alyssa

 

**also linked up at Seedlings in Stone for in, on and around Mondays

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