"Joy Beyond the Sorrow"

Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning

                                                                                          - Psalm 30:4b

There is an old adage with which you are probably familiar: "Time heals all wounds." This sounds nice and comforting. I often allow myself to think it is true, and quite frequently, it really does feel true. We are all wounded - I firmly believe that. Some people much more so than others, but that doesn't change the fact that we all have real wounds. This is the reality of living in a sinful and fallen world. Some wounds are deeper than others. Maybe yours are the wounds of broken family, abuse, the loss of a loved one, broken friendships and even intimate relationships. The list could go on. When the tragedy occurs, you feel like your world will never be the same. But perhaps several weeks later, several months, even several years later, you might say you have “moved on.” The adage feels true – you’ve learned to accept the reality, and to keep living.

Time heals all wounds.

But does it? Really, time on its own serves as a bandaid. It covers the wound so we can go about the day-to-day, without everyone seeing the bleeding mess that we really are. If we wear a bandaid over the wound, no one has to know just how deep the wound really is. But underneath, if we ever pull back the bandaid for a quick peak, or if something comes along that completely tears the bandaid off, what we normally find is that the wound has not healed itself. Underneath the bandaid new skin can’t form. At the very least, it remains an open sore. Often times, it gets infected, and turns out to be much worse.

Covering up some of my deep wounds felt good for a while. And then, in my first semester of interning with RUF, a situation similar to my own wounding knocked the bandage off, and showed me just how dark and festering this wound really was. I had thought time and distance was enough to heal me, and so the stench and infection of this wound sent me into a deep depression. I tried to put the bandage back on, but I was starting to see that a bandaid just wouldn’t be enough.

Perhaps you can relate. I’m talking about one particular wound here, but I can think of many other examples even in my own life. It seems that time does not heal all wounds. So where do we go?

Time does not heal all wounds; Jesus does.

Yes, it is that simple, and yet goes so deep. It was not until I began seeing a Christian counselor that we began really digging deep into the wound. It was painful, and I resisted. I really thought maybe we could just clean up the surface, but the infection was well below the skin. Friends and pastors prayed for me, and encouraged me to go deeper. And as I did, as I relived some of the pain, not only in the counselor’s office, but (reluctantly) in my diary, with friends, with my pastor, and most importantly, with Jesus, I began to see something incredible. It was painful, yes! Not only that, some of it was revolting. I didn’t look clean and neat; I had to let people see the wound. Yet, they didn’t run away disgusted. They showed me Jesus: Jesus, who came to the Cross to suffer the ultimate wounding for me! To be hurt and wounded and to take on my hurt and wounding. I started to see Jesus working on the wound, digging into it, cleaning it out with the antiseptic of His blood, and bringing healing, even as He held me in the process.

No, it is not time that heals our wounds, it is Jesus. I’m learning that being vulnerable about those areas of hurt and struggle are like refusing to put a bandaid on the scrapes and cuts, and learning to let the Church, the Body of Christ look at the ugliness and apply the salve of the Gospel.

For me, this means a lot of tears when I would like to be put-together. It means asking for prayer in places where I know that I am struggling. It means seeking wisdom and counsel when the issues are just too big to handle. It looks messy, but Jesus enters into messy places. Read the Gospels – this is what He loves to do!

These are lessons I am still learning, but it is beautiful to see Jesus at work. Moreover, as we learn to look at and be vulnerable with our own wounds among the Body of Christ, we can learn better to have mercy and patience with others who have been wounded, to apply the Gospel to their wounds as well.

Through the process, we do receive healing. But this healing is only possible through Christ! Sometimes the healing process takes longer than others; sometimes, it might look like the wound is only getting worse, or that just as it is getting better, something else comes along to aggravate it. But the promise of Scripture holds true: “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”

Post Script:

 **Indelible Grace has put out a wonderful album, “Joy Beyond the Sorrow” that deals expressly with this topic, using the lyrics of many old hymn writers set to beautiful new tunes. This CD was given to me as a gift after a particularly deep wound at the end of last year. The message of the Gospel for those who are wounded and bruised is so sweet and clear in the music and lyrics. I don’t plug stuff a lot, but I will plug this album to you! Listen to it and get a copy here!**

Real Life // Real Grace

Let's just move past the fact that it has been..oh, eighteen months since my last blog post? :) Agree with me to let by-gone's be by-gone's. I've had fresh inspiration this week to blog here and there, partially as a creative outlet, and (perhaps I should put this first) as a way to chronicle God's faithfulness to me. This is not so much about you, dear reader, though you are welcome to come along in my ramblings, but a way for me to stop and reflect.

I am in seminary. One third of the way through a Masters of Divinity, actually. I think, for a long time, I had this idea that people in seminary must have it all together. They must really get the gospel message. After all, they are immersed in studying the Word of God all day long. But part of my worry with attending seminary was that I would struggle with making it about head knowledge. And indeed, I do struggle with this. A lot. More than I would like to admit.

It is not that I don't love what I am studying. I do! This past semester, cranking out 15-page term papers was academic effort, certainly, but also a wonderful exercise in getting to see the beauties of God's Word more deeply! Who knew a Greek exegesis paper could be so exciting? But spending hours on end examining a few verses in Titus 2 helped me to see just how wonderfully rich the Bible is, and just how much we can learn from passages that are so easy just to skim through as we do our daily devotionals.

And yet, I still tend to do just that. Read right through a passage to get to the end, without stopping to really take in the significance. Rush through prayer. Rush through class reading. Rush through seminary. Why? So I can rush through the rest of the life that God has given me? Sometimes I feel sick when I think about this.

BUT...2 places where I see God at work even in this:

First, I am grateful that part of seminary education is not just what I come to learn, but what God desires to teach me. And not just through classes - through life. I wish I could express this eloquently. Or adequately. But the former is not really my area of gifting. And the latter is impossible. Anyhow, looking back at the past year, the past semester even, I see God teaching me things that are above & beyond what I can learn simply through class. Things like, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." More and more, I pray and trust, that God is conforming my desires to His will for my life. He is also teaching me things like what it looks really to rely on Him for strength. All semester, dealing with some not-so-fun health issues, I prayed for strength & energy to keep going strong in my classes. And truly, He gave me energy to make it through days where I woke up and thought I could not keep going. Towards the end of the semester though, as I spent more time being sick, I started to get frustrated with God, that he wasn't answering my prayers for strength and my prayers for healing. And then, one day as I wrestled and sobbed about having to ask my professors for extensions (this felt like failure and death to me, even with valid reasons), I started praying about this. Wrestling with God in prayer. And here He started to teach me a new lesson - finding strength in Him might look like facing my biggest fears of NOT being the girl with the perfect grades, or NOT looking like I have it all together. For me, on my own, this is a terrifying place. With Christ walking into these fears with me, I am beginning to see this can be a beautiful place of learning and healing. I have a feeling we're just at the tip of the iceberg right now. But "he who began a good work in you will carry it to completion" - and that is a promise!!

Which brings me to the second thing: I'm currently taking a class online through the virtual campus that is an Introduction to Pastoral and Theological Studies (It just worked out in my schedule that taking it now, virtually, instead of in person, was the best option). Basically, it is an in-depth study of Reformed Theology and the Doctrines of Grace. Growing up in the PCA, I am pretty familiar with all of this, and I wasn't anticipating much from this course, especially from just listening to lectures without actually being there. On the contrary. I want to listen to these lectures all day long. Yes, the class is about the basics of the Doctrines of Grace - and what could be more exciting, beautiful, or applicable to our lives than that? When I think about all my failings (see above for starters!!), all my worries of not being good enough, even when I see that there are so many areas of growth where I'm just at the tip of the iceberg (again, see above), the Doctrines of Grace, expressed so clearly, so beautifully throughout Scripture, remind me of Truth. Certain, unshakeable Truth. The only thing I contribute to my salvation is my sinful condition. God alone gives grace. Through Christ's blood alone do I have redemption. And yet, because it is the grace of GOD, my Creator, and because it is the blood of His Divine Son, purchased for me only because of His great desire and love to do so, my salvation is secure. I cannot escape it! Moreover, my sanctification is secure, and what He has begun in me, He will carry to completion! He has promised this, sealed this promise with Christ's blood, and so He cannot do otherwise! Could anything be more shocking, more counter-intuitive, more hopeful for the backward sinner, more beautiful??? O that I would see more and more the beauty of this gospel message, and that it would transform me, and that, in turn, God would use me to transform others!!

This post is not clean and neat. I'm not going back to fix it up. Maybe I will with others later on. Maybe not. But it is a real glimpse into my messy life right now, and God's grace at work! I will finish this post with the words of Stuart Townsend:

"In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song.
This cornerstone, this solid ground,
firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease;
My comforter, my all-in-all,
Here in the love of Christ I stand!"

 ...

 "There in the ground his body lay,
light of the world, by darkness slain.
Then bursting forth in glorious day,
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory,
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me!
For I am His, and He is mine,
Bought with the precious blood of Christ!"