Posts Tagged ‘anger’

Pain and Hope

July 11th, 2009

Last week a friend and I were talking and praying together and she pulled out a bible and started to read Lamentations 3. As she read some things struck me about this chapter that I had never fully noticed before even though they are fairly obvious. I guess most of the time when I’ve heard these verses I’ve heard and read verses 21-33 disconnected from the rest of the chapter, but it was the verses that came before 21 that really struck me this time.

There is such raw pain and grief and anger in these verses. The author doesn’t try and hid it or excuse it or cover over it, instead he directs his raw anger and grief directly at God saying…
“He has made me dwell in darkness…”
“He has walled me in…”
“He has barred my way…”
“He pierced my heart…”
etc. etc.
And yet it’s amidst this honest pain and anger and even amidst these accusations against God that he writes:
“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him’… It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”

This picture of honest grief mixed with honest hope being held together at the same time is so beautiful. But, it got me thinking how often do we allow ourselves and each other to feel both? To express both of these feelings together in our pain? I mean I think that most of us would feel uncomfortable if someone came up to us and said “The Lord has turned his hand against me again and again, all day long.” Or some of the other sentiments expressed in the first part of this chapter. I mean I think most of us wouldn’t know what to do if someone expressed that kind of raw pain and anger to us. We would probably try to steer the conversation quickly to the hope side of things saying contrived things and giving shallow answers. We wouldn’t feel comfortable with someone accusing God like that and we would quickly try to get them to stop and instead say things like, “The Lord’s compassions never fail.”

But, it struck me maybe the healthiest way to deal with pain and suffering and loss is to enter both sides of this chapter. If we run straight to verses 21 we miss out on part of the process and we bury grief and anger that will eventually resurface. We need to give ourselves and those around us the freedom to feel grief, to feel pain, to feel anger and, I think, the freedom to direct all that grief and anger at God. And yet, we also can’t get stuck there and stay there forever, we need to experience both grief and hope. We can’t rush to hope without experiencing the pain, but we also don’t want to get stuck in the pain and accusations and never move forward to “waiting quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” Maybe if we gave ourselves and others more freedom to experience the first part of the chapter we would all be more likely to move forward to the second part?

So, those were my thoughts – anyone have any other thoughts on this?

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany

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Teach me to welcome change, instead of fearing it…

February 20th, 2008

I was doing the Morning Prayer from the Northumbria Community site this morning and noticed this short prayer at the top of one of the pages:

Lord, teach me to listen to my heart; teach me to welcome change, instead of fearing it.

It hit me like a load of bricks. The first part seemed so closely connected to the phrase that has struck me at the beginning of Lent: “look for Truth deep within me”… “teach me to listen to my heart”… hmmm…

Then I read the second part… “teach me to welcome change, instead of fearing it.”…. I’ve never been very good with change. I like to be in control and I don’t like the loss of control that change brings. In the past few years realized how much I don’t like change but also how important change is so I think I’ve sought out change a lot in the last few years and purposely put myself in positions of change. But, lately I’ve been craving stability again… craving staying in one place and putting down roots. But, God seemed to have one more time of change and instability up His sleeve… A 3 month long trip to the states. Sure we choose to take this trip but it always felt like the decision was sort of already made for us. Even as we were trying to decide I think we both knew that we were going to go and that it was what we were supposed to do.

As I have shared here before I have been feeling a sort of tug-of-war of feelings regarding this trip. Some days feeling really excited about people I will get to see in the states and things I will get to be a part of and other days feeling really sad about leave Prague and friends here. But, it wasn’t until last night when after snapping at my husband for the 100th time in the last two days when I finally realized the dominant feeling I was really feeling about the trip. My heart suddenly became so loud that I couldn’t help but listen to it… I was scared. When I thought about the trip I felt sadness about leaving and excitement about being there sure, but what I was really feeling was FEAR…. Deep fear.

So, Lord, teach me to listen to my heart… teach me to listen to my heart and pick up more quickly on what my heart is really feeling so that I don’t let these hidden feelings lay suppressed under the service only to bubble up in anger to hurt those I love. Teach me to welcome change, instead of fearing it… once again teach me embrace this ever changing life. I can’t control my life, I can’t control other people. Even You, Lord, choose not to control, choose to let us go our own way. Lord, help me to embrace mystery. Lord, this trip is going to be a lot of change, a time of constant change, we won’t be in our own home, we will be traveling a lot, we will be with a variety of different people (some who I know and love well and others who I don’t know much at all), there will be little that is constant in the next few months. Teach me to cling to you as my constant companion and fellow journeyer. Teach me to not take out my fear on Bryan but to instead cling to him as my fellow partner in this journey. Lord, I am scared. I am afraid of many things about this trip, but teach me to listen to my heart, recognize my fear, and then surrender it to you and move bravely into the unknown that you have before me. In Jesus gracious name. Amen.

Rejoicing in the journey -
Beth Stedman

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