The Untold Story

My summer is quickly drawing to its close.  In about twenty-four hours, I’ll be catching up with good friends, in preparation for a week of hard work sowing seeds for the next year of campus ministry.  And along with the endless reunion hugs will come the perennial question: “How was your summer?”

Usually in these “How are you?” situations, “good” will suffice, because there’s really no time for anything else.  But on the occasions that there is time to linger, I’ll have to do my best to reply with an honest answer.  There’s a story I can spin that will be true, even honest.  But it won’t be the whole truth.

See, I enjoy telling battle stories, tales of victory from the brink of defeat.  And sure, that’ll require a mention of the moments that victory didn’t seem so certain, when it seemed all hope was lost.  But I don’t mind sharing about the hard times when I can finish the story with a happy ending.  The sin doesn’t seem so shameful when I can say it’s been defeated by the power of God’s amazing grace.  The pain doesn’t seem so painful when I can paint over it with a tale of how God’s purposefully worked good out of it.  The despair doesn’t seem so dark when I can share how the joy of the Lord broke through those clouds.

But the truth is, sometimes I’m in the middle of the battle.  And it’s been raging on for years.  Sometimes the answers aren’t clear and the future is cloudy.  Sometimes I can’t see God’s purpose for the current pain.  Sometimes I don’t know if He can work good out of what I’m going through.  These are the stories that remain untold.

Two years ago, my Summer Training Program (STP) team leader shared with me this illustration that I often whip out to explain transparency versus vulnerability.  And it’s this: Transparency is like a shop window.  You can see things, but you can’t necessarily touch them.  And my guess is that you could make sure that shop window is presentable, or you could even close the curtains of that shop window.  But vulnerability is letting people through the door, into your shop.  And it’s risky because, as any retail worker can tell you, customers are a source of chaos: they can move things around, misplace them, even break them.  They might even wander into those messy back rooms, where all the junk is stored.

If my life is clay in the hands of the Potter, a workshop of the Maker, a book of the Author, I’m proud to display His finished work in the window of the shop.  It’s pretty, it’s polished, and it’s easy to see how that will bring Him glory.  But I’m afraid to let people see the unformed lumps of clay, the work in progress, the rough drafts.  And even more so, I don’t want them to see the projects that seem to have been abandoned, the ones that turned out in a way that I didn’t expect, the stuff that isn’t so pretty.

But if God is who He says He is, if His promises are true, if He is faithful (Lamentations 3:22-23), if He does indeed work all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28), then perhaps I can let people into the mess.  Perhaps I can show them the unfinished work, confidently trusting that God will somehow bring His good work to completion (Philippians 1:6).  Perhaps I can write from the battlefield knowing that God will bring victory.

Perhaps you’re there too.  Perhaps God is  writing our stories together.

So this is my challenge to you, and to myself as well:  Tell the untold stories.
Let people past the window, through the door, even into the back rooms.  Report from inside the storm, not just after it’s passed.  Speak from the dark of the night before the light of the morning has come.  Ask the questions with murky answers.  Tell the stories that don’t have a resolution…
Yet.  God will finish the story.  He promises.

The Lie of Loneliness – Part 2: The Joy of Vulnerability

A few weekends ago, I was talking with a friend, and we decided that my spirit vegetable is the onion.  That’s because I’m full of flavor and I caramelize deliciously.  But on another level, it’s because a conversation with me happens in layers.  I usually approach a difficult conversation by beating around the bush or attempting to convince you that I don’t want to talk.  But once those thin outer layers are peeled back, then come the stringent tears as we get to the essence, the heart of the issue, layer by layer.

So I started writing “The Lie of Loneliness” last fall, and I’m just now publishing it.  Biggest case of procrastination ever, right?  “Part 1: The Comfort of Christ” was pretty easy to write, but then writing stalled and part 2 sat on the back burner for months.  After last summer, I thought I had learned all I could learn and had arrived at the golden shores of experiencing the freedom in vulnerability, but even a year later, it turns out I still have much to learn.  And so I write this, not having arrived at the summit, but humbly, as a fellow journeyer:

I know that I’m not alone because I have Jesus, who is my great high priest, and yet can sympathize with my every weakness.  This is a great comfort indeed.

Yet I’m also hardwired with a deep need for community, to be fully known and fully loved not just by God, but also by other people.  But too often, I run and hide from the quality people God has placed into my life, and I run into that profound irony of being surrounded by people and still feeling, totally, abjectly, hopelessly alone.

I had bought into the lie that if I was a good enough Christian, I could just rely on Jesus.  No need to depend on other people. I didn’t want to burden them with my truckload of problems.  Through my eyes, their lives seemed so very together.  Surely they had more important things to tend to.  Instead, I played a game of masks, believing that if I could externally do all the things I was supposed to do, to fulfill all of my ministry duties, my academic duties, my work duties, I would be okay.  Or, as I often summarize it in two words: “I’m fine.”

And in some ways, I was fine.  I was keeping up with everything I had to do.  I was keeping it together inside my walls.  But it was lonely inside that mansion.  I wasn’t thriving.  I wasn’t healing.  I wasn’t experiencing life as God intended.  I realized I was cheating both myself and others with my isolation: cheating myself out of the opportunity to experience God’s love through them and cheating others out of the opportunity to extend God’s love to me.  Galatians 6:2 tells us to “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (ESV)  But the flip-side of this command is that I need to let others bear my burdens as well.  By refusing to let others bear my burdens, I wasn’t allowing them to fulfill the law of Christ.

God’s been slowly breaking down my walls, peeling back those onion layers.  I began learning how to let people know how I was really doing, and letting them love me by sitting with me in the pain and silence, or letting them speak God’s truth into my life and pray over me.  James 5:16 tells us to “confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” (NIV).  Healing comes through the power of God, as He answers the prayers of those who have been made righteous by the blood of Jesus.

Despite the risks of vulnerability, despite my fears of opening up to other people, there’s been such reward.  There’s been joy in knowing I am known in my insecurities and struggles, and loved in spite of them.  There’s been freedom in not having to put up those walls to keep people out of what I was really going through.  There’s been times that being vulnerable has given others the chance to say, “Hey, I struggle with that too.  You’re not alone in this.”  To let people into my mess of a life allows them to see and rejoice in God’s work in my life, and God’s even used these precious people as His hands in my life.

Surely goodness and mercy will hunt me down (often translated: follow me) all the days of my life.  God has graciously given me people in my life who will hunt me down when I run from being fully known and loved by them.  In the words of one of these dear friends, “You’re not allowed to be alone.”

 

The Lie of Loneliness – Part 1: The Comfort of Christ

What’s your greatest fear?

I’ve been thinking about this question a lot lately, and I’ve come up with the answer I’m  more comfortable with sharing—and that’s dropping my phone out of my back pocket and into the toilet.  Totally feasible, if you know me.

But if I’m really honest, my greatest fear is not death, not darkness, but loneliness.
Total, abject loneliness.

Contrary to the title—chosen purely for alliteration—it’s not loneliness itself that is a lie.  Loneliness is simply a feeling, one that we all feel at one point or another.  This feeling, however, is indeed rooted in a lie: the lie that we are alone—alone in our sins, our struggles, our sorrows, our shame.

Satan loves to tell us this lie.  It’s probably  in his top 5, up there with the lie that we’re unlovable.  In fact, these two lies are so intricately tangled together.  When I believe that I am alone in something, in come rushing the lies that I cannot be understood, cannot be loved.  And so I tend to stay isolated, stay hidden because I’m afraid that if someone knew about this, they wouldn’t be able to love me.  Isolation really doesn’t help the loneliness.  The woman who mentored me challenged me with this a year and a half ago:
“If they don’t know you, how can they love you?”
And so I’ve been learning, ever so slowly learning, to experience the true the freedom in being “fully known and fully loved.”

But first, it starts with God, being known and loved by Him.  He is Holy—far, far above my sin and my brokenness; this is true.  His perfection sometimes makes him seem unapproachable.  So often, God seems distant, so far removed from my experience here on earth.  In these times, my view of God is clouded by this image of a Deistic God who made everything and then has been passively sitting back for thousands of years watching us mess it all up.  In the words of Switchfoot’s song, “The Day that I Found God,” we wonder “maybe You made us then forgot us.”  Divine abandonment.

But these are lies.  Throughout the Bible, we see a very personal God who cares so much for his people, even if they’re more than a little messed up.  Psalm 138:6a tells us that “Though the Lord is on high, he looks upon the lowly,” and in turn, Psalm 34:18 says that “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in Spirit.”  God cares and He chooses to come close; He won’t leave me alone.

And then in Psalm 139, the psalmist writes, “Oh Lord, you have searched me, and you know me”  God knows me so intimately, better than I know myself—from the number hairs on my head to my innermost being.  And thus, he knows exactly what I’m going through, what I’m struggling with.  Better yet, he not only knows, but He sympathizes.  He understands how it feels.  Hebrews 4:14-16 so clearly speaks to this:

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.  Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (NIV)

This truth is so key in smashing the lie that I’m alone and no one can understand what I’m going though.  If no one else can, Jesus, my great high priest, can sympathize with my weakness.  In Isaiah 53:3, it says that Jesus was “a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.”  Jesus was familiar with suffering, even mine!  Knowing that I am not alone, my response is to approach the throne of God with confidence, bringing my needs to Him, so that I may receive His mercy and grace.  In Psalm 38:9, David writes that “All my longings lie open before you, O Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you.” Oh, to follow David’s practice of bringing even his sighing, even the hard stuff before the Lord.  Because it’s not hidden from Him.  What comfort in knowing that He knows, He cares, He understands!  And He does not sit watching from afar, but comes close to help in my time of need.

You Don’t Know Me

You Don’t Know Me

You know me
(I suppose)
as this confident young genius—
everyone’s favorite writer,
yet humbly enough
spewing knowledge, wisdom even.
Breezing through school, no sweat,
surely bound for a future bright—
bright as the smile I wear,
a ferocious fireball of energy
that will never stop
loving, serving, caring.
Sociable, skilled, smart,
All together.

But you don’t know me like I know me.
These cool shades hide tears
because the cynic in my soul
can’t see hope through these jaded eyes.
I’ve got a sailor’s mouth
and a pirate’s love of gold.
Shrine of lies and selfishness
Violent, volatile, fragile
sharp shards of glass,
a ticking time bomb.
I feel the cost of this facade,
the weight of every step
as I carry this wounded heart,
heavy with leaden armor
sweating buckets of insecurity—
I am precisely who I hate.

But I don’t know me like You know me.
My long forgotten first word
to the instant of my last breath
and every step and stumble in between.
You know my words before they reach my tongue,
my rampant thoughts before they raid my brain.
Every fraying fiber of my breaking heart,
the fears and wounds I’m unwilling to admit,
the dreams of my restless nights.
You know both the quality of my craftsmanship,
the beauty of your handiwork that lies disguise,
and every broken component of my humanity.

Yet You love me.
Knowing who I am and who I’ve failed to be,
You love me for neither.
It’s who You are:
unchanging unfailing uncontrollable
Love.