When your mind is stuck in the dark night in-between time

“How long, LORD?” cried the psalmist. “Will you forget me forever?”

“How long will you hide your face from me?”

In the Bible? These words? Yes. Psalm 13 to be exact.

It’s a crazy, quick 6-verse psalm that finishes in praise.

There’s only one problem. Many of us are stuck in that long period of the dark night where all cognisance of God’s goodness seems missing, even if we know we’ve got so much to be thankful for.

I really don’t care for people who will say, “That guy/gal has so much to be thankful for yet look at them whinge… so ungrateful!”

I care for the one, who, though they seem estranged to a constancy of joy, is honest, and they live the fact that Christians face depression, anxiety, grief, trauma, burnout and the like.

Many of the most ardent Christians are defined by the strength of their doubting. By the fact that they’ve been in their dark night in-between time so long is testament of their resolve for the Lord.

There is a trouble, however, in being in this waystation far from home for too long. We can forget what home looks and feels like, and we can fail to recognise the signs that we’re actually AT home; it’s just a new home that we haven’t yet recognised as good. This is scary in that, if we don’t feel at home now, we can become concerned, “will I ever feel at home again?”

I’m here to tell you, I hear you.

Trauma certainly takes us on a track where we find it hard to trust we’re safe.

As we travel through this in-between time that appears as the dark night that St John of the Cross described to us as a time where God’s Presence feels missing, we’d be forgiven for pondering giving up. Yet, such is God’s goodness faithful, we find we’re given just enough strength not to give up.

It is this kind of faith that pleases God most—that which keeps stepping despite doubt enough to seriously consider giving up very often.

Think of the final words of Habakkuk (chapter 3, verses 17-18):

“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”

The reality is this: only as we continue to step out our weary journey, sustained by as little as keeps us going, somehow with an assurance of God’s goodness, but without even feeling it, are we being primed for something infinitely better. Stay the course my friend.

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If you never feel lonelier than at Thanksgiving

Anyone who’s ever been there knows the serendipitous sorrow of a time like Thanksgiving for millions of people whether they choose to acknowledge it or not.

Those who hate the concept of Thanksgiving, because it’s either not a personally felt phenomenon at all, or there remains so much still to be reconciled, have nowhere to run, when society lashes all to the mast of gratitude and joy.

There’s the day itself, of course, but then there’s also the season beforehand and all the hype, and then there is the steady trickle of stories of “what I did this Thanksgiving.”

It’s all too much for all too many people. And though we can all celebrate the IDEA of giving thanks, because we most of us already know that that’s the way to truly live life, for far too many there is loneliness upon isolation upon frustration upon lament upon even the triggering of horrendous trauma.

Let’s just say it here. It happens, it’s normal (even if it feels abhorrently abnormal to feel this way on a “day of celebration”), and it’s valid. There’s nothing more valid I would say than a situation where we CANNOT celebrate what makes us nauseated.

There are those for which Thanksgiving and all it stands for is hard. And it may always be hard. For the concept of harvest and of provision, still so many have not reaped what they have sown. Perhaps it’s a case of no matter what we sow we will never reap what we have lost. That’s just sad! Let’s just be honest.

If we’ve not reaped what we’ve sown, it is faith and faith alone that keeps us sowing in the hope of an eventual reaping. And that reaping may simply be a true and real acceptance of a new normal.

So, may we hear the gentle voice of the Saviour: “Well done, good and faithful servant, for continuing to sow especially when you’re weary… PLEASE do not grow weary in sowing in faith, for at the proper time you WILL reap a harvest of what you need if you do not give up.”

And even where you have sown and you’ve grown tired of sowing, seek rest and replenishment, because you know how long the journey is, and there is but one option left when we’re tired. God allows us to “give up” for a day. Perhaps Thanksgiving is that day.

As the Autumn leaves fall, it’s a reminder that growth is always a changing context.

Even though God must feel so silent when we’re at the depths of the abyss, God does know intimately what we’re dealing with, and God does care. How do I know? God is closer to those who need him most. It’s not until we look back that we recognise this. Afterwards we will know.

Here is to your “afterwards.”

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Reassurance in a moment of spiritual crisis

It happens to me once or twice a month; an intense hit I take, and it leaves me flat, sad, beyond hope, essentially despairing. Everything within my mind and body seems at war. I can hold it together, if I want, but I hate being fake these days.

Deeper into the journey of turmoil I sit there and admit it’s a spiritual crisis—a crisis of spirit. I don’t know what to do to fix it. I can’t be bothered fixing it. Yet, I hate it that I’m not feeling together.

I know what I need most of all in these tormenting hours. It is connection I need. To talk all the nonsense out. To expel the anger through a safe channel that attenuates harm. To experience the acceptance of, say, my wife as she just listens. To try and find words that might reconcile what is impossible to express. To jettison energy in the attempt to engage. To come to the very end of myself and then be situated in a stillness that has no answers yet accepts.

The reassurance we need when we feel estranged from ourselves can seem distant.

The comfort we strive for when we’re disillusioned and alienated is the connectedness that reminds us what we feel when we’re as far as possible from loneliness. When all our needs feel met. There’s an intrinsic satisfaction in feeling connected to ourselves. These times we either want to connect others, get creative, or sink into a soothing meditation.

Moments of spiritual crisis occur when we’re deep in estrangement, when all about us feels itchy within, and when we just cannot put our finger on what’s wrong. We may feel frustrated and annoyed, but the real issue is sorrow for what feels horrible and fear that we’ve truly lost our way.

Reassurance is found in resting in the truth that through connection we will find our way again. Not through dissociation though. The last thing we need is to depart into a dangerous temptation—a drink, a drug, a bet, a fancy or a fantasy, and any other escape.

Escape promises a counterfeit sense of connection that is opposite to connection and only exacerbates our problems. It takes us further than ever from a meeting with ourselves. Escape is a hideous betrayal of connection when connection could change everything.

Reassurance is received through reconnection to ourselves through facing our lonely reality. Through honesty, no matter how painful it is, we are reconnected with ourselves.

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Acknowledging the presence of unknown spiritual attack

There is a feeling that is familiar that is also disconcerting. It’s an anxious feeling. It’s the sense that there is something not quite right, or even a preparation for something quite untoward.

The presence of an unknown source of mild bewilderment, of not being able to put our finger on it, of feeling flat (or what I call, ‘blah’), and especially of noting with that the slightest sense of fear (that often builds slowly into full blown anxiety), is often an insidious form of spiritual attack.

Spiritual attack is often inbound when we’re on the cusp of a vitalising change, at the end of a crucial period of transformation, or any other time when the enemy wants to slide on in with deft subtlety that we don’t figure. At the least likely time (as we figure) God’s ever prowling enemy threatens to devour.

This is why it is so important ever to realise the simple truths of God’s Word in James 4:7-8. As we draw near to God, even in a flatness that cannot be explained, God draws near to us. God is ever close, but we can only get the succour we need when we actually desire it; such is the love of God, he will not coerce us with the heavenly aid of the Spirit against our will.

There are some matters that, in terms of spiritual attack, beg to be mentioned, namely grief and trauma, for which we’re all susceptible.

The often-hidden impact of grief and trauma

Grief is a subtle force weaving its way from within our unconscious mind right up to make an impression at the surface of our conscious thought. We may discern it as a reticence to engage with life.

Levels below the consciousness of everyday thought lurk griefs that have been put off (denied) and traumas that we haven’t yet been able to interrogate.

Not all unknown spiritual attacks form because of griefs or traumas that haven’t been processed, but, in the spirit of the prayer of Psalm 139:23-24, it’s always a good place to start. We could wonder if God is asking, “Could it be that there is something within the last few years, or even something much earlier in life, that is still as yet to be reconciled?”

If we take God seriously, we take this enquiry into our prayers and meditate, a la Psalm 1:2, on the possibility of our unconscious mind having something to say.

The process of venturing deeper into the possibilities of grief and trauma is a search upon a learning journey this is as much about deconstruction as it is about reconstruction. Inevitably it’s all part of the spiritual journey. If only we will trust the journey to God.

The enemy’s hatred of the advancement of the Kingdom of God

Of course, much spiritual attack is propagated simply because the enemy hates us succeeding for the Kingdom of God. Such success isn’t something the world necessarily calls success, however.

Success in the upside-down Kingdom is an economy that wins nothing in this world but is full of favour and power in the Spirit.

Where we’re able to simply trust in an in-between season, or where patience and peace are ours in a way that transcends our understanding, or where there is an embracing of powerful community, the enemy is under threat, because we’re being shown things in the Spirit that we can neither deny nor can we backslide from.

The enemy knows that once we see the riches of God’s Kingdom we can never unsee them. The moment we taste and see that God is wholly good, we do not and cannot look back.

If we can acknowledge the presence of an unknown spiritual attack is inbound, we have discerned something that we may well be blessed to take seriously.

Seeing what we ordinarily would not see takes humility only found in a servant of God.

One thing for sure. If you’re targeted by an unknown oppression it is as much as anything a sign that your desire to please God has upset God’s enemy. That’s a sign if anything to keep going.

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For those about to be traumatised… for the first time

We don’t get it until we get it. It’s the same deal in every arena in life.

Someone asked me recently, “How can those around the narcissist not see what the victims see?” It’s a really simple answer.

Because, on the one hand, those around the narcissist are unconsciously enmeshed in loyalty to them, whilst on the other, they haven’t experienced ‘the switch’. In a highly conditional relationship, loyalty keeps them safe. People usually have absolutely no idea—and cannot see—the subtle nuances that are unparalleled in their wrongness. Until. There is a crossing. As soon as there is a challenge to that loyalty—it could be as simple as a disagreement—the switch occurs. Conditions become apparent. Ultimatums are not unusual. In other words, they’re saying, “get back in line… or face the consequences.” (Now, there are many roles in life where getting back in line is necessary. It’s all in the way it’s done, what the relationship is, and the presence or absence of virtues like patience, respect, courtesy and kindness.)

What we’re delving into is common through life. Until we experience certain things it’s as if they don’t happen. This is one reason why when bad things happen to us, they can be seen as educative. That doesn’t mean we appreciate what’s happened.

Before we’ve been traumatised by an incident, by assault, by loss, or by abuse, we really cannot conceive what it entails, the suddenness of it, the brutality of the impact, the instant barrenness of soul that’s felt, the levels and depths of betrayal in some cases—all of which are truly fathomless.

Before we’ve been traumatised, we can see those who are traumatised as something of a problem. Or, if they’re loved ones or friends we can be in a situation where we watch on and empathise as best we can, without truly understanding.

Before we suffer traumatising events ourselves, when we’re not close to those who have suffered trauma, we can tend to doubt them, or think they’re lying, that it’s a fabrication, or that it’s only weak people who are ‘damaged’.

We might wonder why they can’t let go of it and their responses may even significantly frustrate us. We may wonder why they don’t listen to us. Before we’re afflicted by assault or loss or abuse and are affected by trauma, we can have some pretty strange concepts of this phenomenon of grief, and only afterwards—after we’ve experienced this kind of affliction—do we see the blindness of this. Suddenly the light flickers on within us; “Ah, I get it now!”

We just don’t get it until our world is rocked. Quickly we grow expansively in empathy and understanding. Grief matures us.

~

For those about to be traumatised, your world is about to change, and you will have no way back to the way life was. I am so sorry.

For those about to be traumatised, you are about to learn new things that will demand the unlearning of old things. You may be forced into a ‘new normal’ which you would never choose if you didn’t need to. This will feel brutal. Really—I am so sorry.

You will question very many parts about yourself in this process. This is grief; one of the worst kinds—the losing or deconstruction of self. This kind of grief is so hard to reconcile. 

Add to the complicated nature of grief that undoes oneself, bring in the sticky nature of trauma. Trauma’s impacts stick. It does your head in. Our first instances of trauma change us irrevocably.

We must cling to the hope that a palatable new normal is possible, even probable.

The new normal will involve a bigger version of ourselves that learns to 1) accept what we cannot change, 2) change what we can (because we will not leave it as it is), and 3) discern one from two and two from one.

~

Postscript: I for one think that so many people are traumatised early in childhood in one way or other through adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). It is therefore one thing to discuss the issue of “first traumatic experience” in the adult context, but we must consider that even a “first experience” probably isn’t truly a first experience. There may be experiences we had as children that we weren’t equipped to suffer at the time—i.e. they overwhelmed our capacity to suffer them.

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The depths of God you can only find through loss

As a fruit of the losses we go through, I want to share with you the one I was given. It was borne out of a revenant experience—and what experience of shattering loss that we cannot escape isn’t a revenant experience?

Loss is the antecedent to a revenant experience.

That is to say, to truly live we must first die. This metaphor is best illustrated in Jesus of Nazareth who went to the cross just days before he was raised in what is indisputably the greatest miracle of all time. Jesus’ death and resurrection is a model for what we’re to follow by metaphor. We follow him by his example.

There is always a compensation for the suffering we go through. To live as that is the truth is faith. We just have to find it. That itself is a faith quest. Yet, even as we do this—head held high in heartbreaking sorrow—which itself is mind-bending paradox—do we stay in the game, so to speak.

The longer—the more frustrating, the more we come to the end of ourselves—the experience of living in that liminal space of pain, learning to bear it honestly in sorrow amid the gamut of emotions before God, the deeper God takes us into his own heart. But this is always juxtaposed by equivalencies of support and encouragement—hence the importance of community!

Only as we hold steadfastly to the ideal that there will be—and therefore IS—a compensation for what we’re suffering do we reject overtures to give up and hold out for something entirely better. We can only do this one day at a time, even as time just about grinds to a halt.

Good does come at the end of the road of a faith that insists that good is coming. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. But dying to ourselves will always feel like hell. We must not forget that Jesus has overcome hell.

It starts as a revenant experience, for in dying to ourselves—which, check and see, is a biblical imperative—we come to live out of a power that is not our own.

Imagine that it is impossible to attain to living as a revenant without bearing loss. Can you see, therefore, that even in the event and circumstance of loss, we are being promoted to a heavenly glory even as we live and breathe in this life? Even as we suffer in the pit of grief we are given access to a living death that precedes a glorious resurrection.

These words were ushered into me several years after I endured my revenant experience: I am cosmically alone with God. I believe they were God’s words for me.

I would recite it in Greek:          έγω  έιμι  κοσμικον  μονου  μετα  θεον

Sound weird? Sound kind of lonely and sad?

The reality for me was (and is) everything that means everything to me. Suddenly, out of loss, what was discovered is, if loss cannot kill us, nothing can. Having experienced and survived that taste of revenant death, nothing of this world truly brings us close to that kind of ‘death’. Sure, we can still slip into our humanity and lose our way. It happens still so often. BUT, there is an opposite image in the Spirit that is, in a flash, returned to.

Once the Spirit is given to us, we cannot return, indefinitely, to what was.

It is not the end of our life to experience something very close and akin to the end of our life. Indeed, it is actually the beginning. In alignment with what Paul said, “When I am weak, I am strong,” we learn that enduring death to ourselves bestows an inextinguishable hope, and this hope cannot be learned without traversing the journey of grief.

See how good grief is?

A conversation with God about self-destructive thinking

Why does my heart feel so bad? 

I do know, Lord. Well, at least I have an idea. But why is this anger that is turned on within me, against me? Like most of my prayers, God, this will have the shape of incoherence about it, but at least I know you’re listening, even if it feels like I’m speaking to myself.

Oh, you do seek an honest prayer… thank you that I can be “me” before you.

Why is it that anger turns to destruction of another or self-destruction? I cannot bear to intentionally harm another person, so I turn all that torrent of self-recrimination on myself. I hate the very idea that I could cause another person harm, and yet that hatred zeroes back in upon me like a heat-seeking missile.

I understand it’s the trauma speaking, God. I hear the Spirit’s gently soothing truth: “Go gently now.” It just doesn’t help instantly, when I’m clamouring for help.

Help me receive the grace that I would feel healed amid this tyranny right now. Cause me and anyone else who is in this state to feel the gentle breeze of your shalom waft in, through and over, to a cellular level. Cool the heat of this inner corrosion in us.

Even in the throes of this inward attack, would you come in and like you do, give calm to the angst our souls bear. Give us the bearings of love that our loved ones feel for us, not least yourself, the God of our creation, who loves us like no other one can.

You get me because you get everyone you made. You know how things shake our entire world and being. In the desperation of the one who feels tormented by a triggering they couldn’t foresee let alone control, give the semblance of control that prevents the spiral into self-destruction.

~

Feeling triggered for trauma or being anxious to the point of being self-destructive, whether it’s what we’re thinking or acting out or both, is a scary place to be. Nothing scarier. We know we’re not alone, but it feels like we’re the only ones on the face of the earth driven to the end of ourselves.

You are not alone. You are not alone.

Being beautifully sensitive and empathic, courageous enough to be vulnerable to trust without doubt, we take opportunities to live our faith—but that leaves us susceptible to provocations and events that shake us down. Then we feel we cannot trust when we know we ought to. Feelings of confusion swarm.

We’re susceptible because of the scope and range of our hearts that were built to love and be loved. Open-hearted, our hearts were pierced. Open handed, our hands were slapped. 

What hurts, hurts. Whatever hurts, if we won’t counterattack, takes us to a place of absorption. We absorb the hurt in the power of God, but inevitably in God’s goodness we cannot contain that which is nasty within. God insists that what’s toxic is bad for us, and that IT must go!

So, in bearing a hurt that cannot be contained, in refusing to attack others, when attacking others helps nobody, we have to find another way to process what will poison us in self-destruction if we’re not careful.

We process that by talking.
We must talk.
We must speak these toxins out into space and time.
Speaking the toxins out saves us and heals us.
Speaking the toxins out saves us hurting others.
Speaking the toxins out takes courage.
Speaking the toxins out honours the Lord.

We talk with God in cries, yelps and screams. Long nights of sobbing. Days waiting for night to come. Waiting for time when we can be alone with God.

We may also talk with a beautifully empathic pastoral carer, too. Someone who big-hearted enough to allow the manifestation of the toxins to pungently flow. We tell our stories in sadness and in repetition as we need to. These are long stories and they’re said more than we thought they would need to be said.

And by that, in the seconds of engagement, God heals us again.

God’s heart is desperate that we would reach up in the wisdom of faith that’s birthed in a poverty of hope.

Advocate as much as possible, just do no more harm

The world needs prophets and the world has prophets. There is no end of prophecy these days, but if we’re not careful our prophetic voices will be harsh and ineffective instruments; noise that may bring dishonour to the name of Christ.

Besides this, when we lose our centre, when we run ahead of Christ, we not only lose our poise, we lose what Christ is doing IN US; the chief target, aim and work for any Christian being. Amazing how this is always the first thing to disappear from view when our voice looms large; God’s voice for us, for our journey, for us, alone—his greatest gifts are indelibly personal. From the personal (the vertical) we go the interpersonal (the horizontal).

Only as we orient ourselves vertically
are we equipped afresh to minister horizontally.

Another besides; we get close to nowhere when our interactions descend into rabble-rousing. If we cannot love people with the truth, including the tougher love that implores repentance, we need to leave them to God or to the enemy, depending on where that lands in the realm of judgement, which is not our prerogative.

Anger is certainly appropriate, but true righteous anger saves the vitriol and inters the incredulity inward so genuine sorrow can birth a resolve that helps us stay the distance. There is no surer way to ultimately burn out than by constantly hissing at those who disagree with us.

What good is anger if it doesn’t pour forth healing—and not just for those who have been harmed but hope for healing in those who did the injustices in the first place, though many will never see. Surely our action must at all times promote responses toward healing; that all comers would come nearer the truth and be better able to love, as much as possible as far at that depends on us (Romans 12:18).

I understand the anger. I really do. I’ve wrestled in that place myself, sometimes unable to reconcile the injustice that has seemingly swarmed around in my world. To be honest, I feel hypocritical writing this. But this is not about me. God wants me writing this for the reason that I’m sharing what the Holy Spirit is teaching me. I’m so thankful for the patiently prophetic voices in my life who have loved me with the gentlest truth.

I value your voice and I’d hope you’d value mine. Christian beings are being Christian when they value one another’s voices, and all the more when they elevate the view that is unlike their own, so long as that view is Christlike. And where it isn’t, we restrain ourselves from instinctive anger that is unbecoming those of Christ. Otherwise WE sin.

When we advocate from the space of I-will-do-no-harm-to-you, we do so out of the fruit of healing. Of course, there must be empathy for those who are on their way there. Empathy, and space, compassion, kindness, grace.

But if our voice isn’t reflective of Christ’s redemptive work, as exemplified in our being coarse, crude and abrupt with others, meting out offence for offence, then our voice is wasted at the very least, and it does great harm to others and to the name of Christ at the most. And it doesn’t profit us at all. It takes us into the opposite trajectory from healing.

We must be honest. If something riles us or triggers us, let us first go inward and enquire with God; “What’s in THIS for me?” In going inward, we stop the reptilian response that in the blindness of projection lashes out at others.

We pause, we reflect, we recoil, and we give God the chance to bring stillness to us from within. Only then can our voice be used to good effect.

I have often thought in my studies and writing on narcissism, that, “God, would you just pinpoint in me any of MY narcissism,” because I don’t want to be a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

I might have lots of passion and energy, but if it’s even one degree misdirected, it lands in India instead of Indonesia. I’m sure that at times when I’ve had a fire in my belly, that that fire has spilled over and burned others, literally without caring. These are monstrous acts.

We cannot advocate against injustice and
in the same breath pour out injustice.

An advocate who cannot model the repentance they can begin to demand from others is disqualified in my view.

Advocacy perhaps straddles hypocrisy to this degree, and repentance is our only salvation when we’ve committed an injustice.

There’s no loving truth in that. There’s no Christ in that. There’s no trust that Christ has ALL injustice in his very hands of judgement in that.

We call out the injustice, we lament the fact, we say it as it is, but we leave space for Christ.

We inter our anger and we allow it to fully form in the womb of disdain so it may be birthed in genuine sorrow.

And, in this, as we advocate with our prophetic voices, we promise Christ afresh, to not stray from the Beatitudes…

As recorded in Matthew 5:3-10, Jesus said:

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,
for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure of heart,
for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called children of God.

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Trust in and act on the instinct and ‘gut’ of your heart

The gut knows, but in a thinking world we rarely trust it. And still, we must read the gut for it to be an ally. And having read it, then we must have courage to act.

(I can tell the enemy doesn’t want me to write this, because the words are hard, and the construction is frustrating, and that doesn’t happen without the presence of attack. So, please bear with me.)

Especially as Christians, there is a strong pull to not want to upset or do harm to others, but tip over the knife’s edge and we become vulnerable. That need to love others can prevent us vouching for our own truth, when vouching for our own truth is literally our best defence mechanism—one that God in divine wisdom created for our survival.

Equally, however, there are Christians who speak truth undeterred by “fear” and they potentially do great harm thinking they’re doing God a service. God wants nobody repelled or repulsed because of the gospel. God doesn’t excuse and never endorses truth by force.

This is the matter of discerning our circumstances and whether they’re safe or not. God doesn’t expect any of us to remain in toxic relational situations, for Jesus himself said, “shake the dust from your feet… let your peace return to you,” (Matthew 10:13-14) and that was put in terms of sensing a lack of welcome on account of the gospel. Discerning an actual threat takes situations up a notch and more.

Nobody forces us to remain in a situation against our will, least of all God.

But what God does give us is a body that is highly attuned to sensing danger, and with the brain of the gut, and with the heart of our instinct, we’re granted the bodily ability to discern when to stay, when to go, when to resist, and when to stand.

One of the advantages of trauma that is also a tragedy is how well these senses are piqued to the triggering of one’s entire being, when, as the instincts fire, conniptions of reaction go off in a chain reaction. One of the tasks of trauma recovery is learning the ‘when’ and ‘how’ of triggers so strategies are developed for prevention and response.

What we need to do is be empowered to walk when we need to.

We need to have previously agreed with ourselves that if and when certain situations arise, we’ll walk. In other situations, perhaps it’s a case that we’ll make a stand—but not where our agency is stripped from us and we’re rendered vulnerable to triggering or attack.

When we’re not feeling safe, we ought to find the sanctuary of harbour.

Trusting in and acting on the instinct and gut of our heart is vital to teach anyone who is vulnerable to being taken advantage of.

Practically, we must learn our “radar” for threat, and we must learn to trust it, and then to obey it.

That requires sensing to the degree that we know our body, fine-tuning our senses so we can discern a threat from what is safe, and it is having the courage to act as advocates for ourselves when we need to without doubting and worrying.

Most of all, it’s learning that we’re not “judging” Christians for enabling these good defences. These are protective behaviours. We all need them.

And, finally, we MUST also learn to forgive ourselves for times when we didn’t discern or didn’t act on our gut, when we trusted but it proved unwise in hindsight. None of these situations of trauma are your fault.

You have the right to protect yourself to the precise degree that you need protection.

You get to define what that looks like.

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Filling the hole of loneliness without love

I’ve had my share of conversations with counsellees that go like this: “So, what do you think drives the lust that you cannot control?” “Oh, that’s easy. I feel there’s a loneliness deep down inside me that nothing can satisfy.” And I say, “That’s a grief that only one thing can fill.”

Filling the hole of loneliness without love is the futility of using any number of ten thousand things to do what only God in his wisdom can. But we don’t go to God, do we?

We don’t go to God because doing that involves going into our pain.

God is a doorway through which we’re required to walk. God is on the other side of the threshold, and we get to the other side by faith. But nothing drives us over that line, or across that divide, without a big push by hope, and that’s inspired by a desperation, where the pain of entering God is less than a pain of where we’re presently at.

Starting the journey of grief is wisdom, but it is also the wanton surrender unto death. Nobody goes that journey through that door unless they’re utterly sick and tired of being sick and tired. The journey through that door to the other side is potentially years long, but every endurance of pain is worth it over the long haul. No matter the presence of those promises on the other side, however, the very thought of that view through the doorway is positively sickening. It’s enough to cause us to involuntarily heave.

What the pain of grief teaches us in it is God’s presence, but never as an accompanying fact. It’s only afterwards, by the revelation of those footprints in the sand, that we realise just how faithful God is to carry us when we could walk no further, even though we thought at that time it was us, ourselves, that was doing it our way, thinking God was derelict of duty, AWOL when he promised to never leave us nor forsake us.

It’s only afterwards that we discover the irrefutable reality that God is there, everywhere, with us. Afterwards, and only then.

The pain involves many tears, many horrid lonely nights, and many repetitive questions that went unanswered. The pain created despair many times worse than we thought was even possible; pain we could hardly bear. The pain we resented at the time actually took us to a deeper understanding of ourselves. The pain that threatened to destroy us actually became the vehicle to the knowledge of God. The pain that we could not have borne on ourselves alone taught us our identity. This pain brought us to our knees in the sight of God, and from there we discovered how to fill that hole called loneliness with love. Yet that pain, though we’d never do it again (well, that’s what we say!), took us more deeply into inexplicable mystery than we could ever understand, and still we learn that somehow it was intrinsically part of our destiny. God had his purpose in it.

That pain that we hated so much, as we were crushed there in it, took us deep into the heart of God, and from there, God took our heart and healed it.

Photo by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash