Tag Archives: pain

Powerless? Maybe…

Posted by Amy W in Devotional, Jesus, life, Quotes and tagged with , , , ,

On Sunday nights I usually meet with a few friends to pray.  We’ve been doing this for a few months now…to pray for and encourage each other and also to pray for the communities that we find ourselves in.  Tonight, I didn’t really want to go.  I went because part of me knew that I should go…that it would be good for me to go before God with my friends.  I had every intention of not saying a word, just quietly joining them in the prayers that we would offer up.

Before we started the prayer, there was a conversation about several random spiritual things.  I was trying hard to stay “checked out”, but I listened to everything that was being said.  At one point one of the guys started talking about how God is always with us, no matter where we go (physically) or what we go through – God is right there next to us. It spoke to me, and started breaking down the wall that I was trying so hard to keep up.  When I couldn’t hold back any more, I left to go to the bathroom to regain composure.  For someone who is known for feeling deeply and not being afraid to show emotion in that kind of setting, I had already decided that I would not, in no way, break down or show any kind of emotion…so I had to leave before anyone saw me respond.

Tonight we just prayed for each other, going around the room, person by person.  Another thing I really didn’t want to happen.  As I said, I intended to go, saying nothing, pray, then leave.  When it was my turn, I told them that I couldn’t do it…I couldn’t tell them what I needed prayer over or what was going on with me.  (who am I right now?)  They just prayed for me.  One of my good friends began praising God’s sovereignty and how he’s already decided that he would allow events in our (my) life to happen, both good and bad.  I jolted.  If I’m honest, I would say I hated hearing those words.  I hated hearing that reality.  And I became so angry because it’s true…and I believe it to be true…even with my days right now.  I didn’t cry, I didn’t walk out (even though after hearing that I really wanted to) and other than seeing my knuckles white from a death grip on the arm of the couch, I think I managed to maintain my outward appearance of unresponsiveness.

Tonight I know that I am fighting with every ounce of my being to maintain control over my life and to maintain some kind of sense of “well-being”.  My whole attitude, known only to myself (and the two or three that might read this blog) is a little confusing to me.  I know how I should be as a child of God.  I know what I should do.  But I’m not.  I’m fighting in ways that I haven’t fought in years.  I see the effect that it’s having on me, but it’s like a drug addiction…I can’t seem to stop…I can’t seem to let go…I can’t seem to even be honest before God right now.  What is that?

So, reading one of my favorite authors, Henri Nouwen, I read this, one of his journal entries, tonight:

There are places in you where you are completely powerless.  You so much want to heal yourself, fight your temptations, and stay in control.  But you cannot do it yourself.  Every time you try, you are more discouraged.  So you must acknowledge your powerlessness.  This is the first step in Alcoholic anonymous and the treatment of all addictions.  You might think of your struggle this way.  Your inexhaustible need for affection is an addiction.  It rules your life and makes you a victim.

Simply start by admitting that you cannot cure yourself.  You have to say yes fully to your powerlessness in order to let God heal you.  But it is not really a question of first and then.  Your willingness to experience your powerlessness already includes the beginning of surrender to God’s action in you.  When you cannot sense anything of God’s healing presence, the acknowledgement of your powerlessness is too frightening.  It is like jumping from a high wire without a net to catch you.

Your willingness to let go of your desire to control your life reveals a certain trust.  The more you relinquish your stubborn need to maintain power, the more you will get in touch with the One who has the power to heal and guide you.  And the more you will get in touch with that divine power, the easier it will be to confess to yourself and others your basic powerlessness.

One way you keep holding on to an imaginary power is by expecting something from outside gratifications or future events.  As long as you run from where you are and distract yourself, you cannot fully let yourself be healed.  A seed only flourishes by staying in the ground in which it is sown.  When you keep digging up the seed to check whether its growing, it will never bear fruit.  Think about yourself as a little seed planted in rich soil.  All you have to do is stay there and trust that the soil contains everything you need to grow.  This growth takes place even when you do not feel it.  Be quiet, acknowledge your powerlessness, and have faith that one day you will know how much you have received.
(from The Inner Voice of Love, p.30-31)

Relevant?  Perhaps.

A Foot In Two Different Lands

Posted by Amy W in Christianity, Devotional, Jesus, life, Quotes and tagged with , , , , , , ,

I read this little piece by Henri Nouwen (from The Inner Voice of Love) tonight and thought that it was so perfect for me tonight that I had to share (prehaps putting an end to my writing hiatus)…

“You have an idea of what the new country looks like.  Still, you are very much at home, although not truly at peace, in the old country.  You know the ways of the old country, its joys and pains, its happy and sad moments.  You have spent most of your days there.  Even though you know that you have not found there what your heart most desires, you remain quite attached to it.  It has become part of your very bones.

Now you have come to realize that you must leave it and enter the new country, where your beloved dwells.  You know that what helped and guided you in the old country no longer works, but what else do you have to go by?  You are being asked to trust that you will find what you need in the new country.  That requires the death of what has become so precious to you: influence, success, yes, even affection and praise.

Trust is so hard,  since you have nothing to fall back on.  Still trust what is essential.  The new country is where you are called to go, and the only way to go there is naked and vulnerable.

It seems that you keep crossing and recrossing the border.  For a while you experience real joy in the new country.  But then you feel afraid and start longing again for all you left behind, so you go back to the old country.  To your dismay , you discover that the old country has lost its charm.  Risk a few more steps into the new country, trusting that each time you enter it you will feel more comfortable and be able to stay longer.”

Several years ago I spent almost 2 weeks in Ghana, West Africa.  It was a beautiful trip where I took away many insights and lessons about the Lord and life.  At one point in our trip we stopped by a park/garden.  In this garden was a line that represented the prime meridian, the line that separates the eastern and western parts of the world.  Naturally, we all took pictures standing on the line…and then standing with one foot on either side.  I literally stood with one foot on each side of the world, with a single line splitting the two.  As I read this little snippet from Henri Nouwen tonight, it sank in that every day I walk with one foot in two different “lands”.  One is in the world.   The other is in the world as defined and understood through a right understanding of God.  I’m not sure it’s as exciting as the prime meridian (I’d like to have both feet firmly planted in the Kingdom of God), and it’s proving to be much harder to navigate.

I know what God has to offer, not in its entirety, but through beautiful glimpses that I have been allowed over the past several years.  Still, I find it quite uncomfortable.  Frustrating.  Lonely.  Confusing.  It’s not that I want the days of old to define my life forever, but when things get uncomfortable, it becomes rather easy to retreat back to what is most comfortable, even if it is a place filled with pain, lies, and disarray.  I wish I didn’t default this way…I want to stay where there is light and joy and freedom, instead I crumble under the weight of the world and lies that, logically, I fully recognize as lies, yet continue live as if I fully believe.

A few years ago I chose to stand with one foot in the Western World and the other in the Eastern World.  Today I only want to stand on one side of that line, but the other side clings to my foot.  It’s like a shadow, stuck to my foot.  I try to shake it, but I can’t.  Every time my foot sets back down, the shadow is there to meet it.  The only exception is in day light, where the shadow doesn’t seem to exist.  If only the light would flood this world…maybe then I would finally be free (and able) to stand fully in the land where God’s kingdom dwells.  Eternally.

Stop Light Memories

Posted by Amy W in Christianity, Devotional, Jesus, Random Thoughtz and tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Today I was driving into downtown Baltimore when I came to a stop light.  As I stopped (and the cars around me stopped) I saw a woman standing on the median open this folded cardboard scrap she had been cradling in her arms.  I couldn’t see what it read as I was in the lane farthest from her, but I noticed her frail body and not-so-clean clothes and shoes.  I wondered about her life and how she came to be the woman standing on the median in Baltimore.  I looked up to notice a man with one leg in a wheel chair begin to cross the street in front of me.  He too had folded cardboard with him.  Perhaps he was going to the adjacent median to, like so many of us at 7:30, start his day.  Just as my thoughts began to travel to him, wondering what happened to his leg, and how he came to be the man in a wheelchair, sitting on a median in Baltimore…the commercials on my radio came to an end and an all-to-familiar song began to play… 

“The splendor of the king
Clothed in Majesty
Let all the earth rejoice.”

My thoughts wandered down a new road…

Lord these people, your children, living each day to find their way to this median…hoping to get money for food, for drink…maybe even for drugs.  Lord these are your children!  How do you let this be?

“How great is our God?
Sing with me
How great is our God?
And all will see
how great
how great is our God.”

In an instant, the lights turned green and I was on my way.  Even though physically I moved on, mentally I didn’t.  The image stuck with me.  No, the dichotomy that I just witnessed stuck with me – singing of a good God as I watched two people who live their lives on street medians and corners.  I drove away listening to Chris Tomlin sing the rest of the song.  My senses were awakened as I listened to the praises of just how Great God is…only to watch the people and sights around me.  Almost as if slipping from one world to another…I crossed over from the old, tattered, industrial/ghetto into the skyscraper, beauty of the business district.  As if on cue, the song ended as I did so.  The contrast in the Baltimore neighborhoods that I passed on my short commute into the city was almost as stark as the idea of singing about a great God while staring into the eyes of a one legged man, and abnormally frail woman both carrying signs…hoping to find a means for their next meal or next ____(fill in the blank). 

Maybe it was something God wanted me to see.  Maybe it was something that He wanted me to wrestle with this morning on my way into the city.  I’ve been in Baltimore before…many times…going to many neighborhoods, good and bad alike.  It’s not that I’m numb to it I’m just not surprised by it.  But for some reason today I was. 

Do you want to know my honest thoughts as that song came on and the dichotomy hit me? 

God…Great?  Are you kidding?  What about them, God?  Have you forgotten them?  Do you feel great looking down on your creation in shambles?  Can I really praise you as being great right now?  

I wonder if those people would say God is great?  The humbling thing is that they just might! 

I don’t mean to call into questions God’s greatness or goodness.  I can barely begin to fathom his ways and his justice and His love.I was just struck by the goodness of God and the saddness that exists in humankind here on earth. 

Today it broke my heart. 

If that was even a fraction of what God feels in His compassion (like 1%)…I can’t believe what he must feel when he looks down on the broken world…on his broken children…knowing full well what all of this could have been.  perfect.  But it’s not.  And that’s not even considering His Son, whom much of His creation still denies or rejects.