“Pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly.”
― William Paul Young, The Shack
For the last several weeks I have been in a place I have never been before. I would guess our walk, if we are actually moving ,should always feel like this. I am not even sure how to explain this place, except that maybe my pain is all that is holding me together. I know less than I have ever known. God, Jesus is a subject different than any other. If I was learning about fixing an engine, each week I am sure I would know more, but with the subject of the Holy Spirit, Jesus, and God the more time I spend learning the less I know.
Let's take the subject of cancer alone. I have several people in my life fighting cancer right now. Two of them are very important to me. One is a friendship of 23 years. He gets parts of me that no one else does. Creativity is what we have in common and practically the only thing, but his friendship is very important to me. Sometimes I feel he is the only proof that I have changed. He knew me when. Though he no longer has throat cancer, he will have surgery to remove prostate cancer and the affects could be life changing. Some days the pain I feel for him is more than I can express. As he struggles to believe in a God that I hold hands with even as we share and laugh at our struggles.
I worked with a woman for 7 years at my last job and we became good friends. Then I changed, I found Christ and I am not the same person and though I love her as much as ever, she doesn't believe it. Her husband has the "C" and is in a lot of pain. As I stood in the Healing Rooms where I volunteer and people are set free from cancer, unforgiveness and uneven limbs, I receive a text from her and though they are only words on a small screen I can hear her screaming them "I am going to go crazy and kill. Who is this God you talk about? The higher power that is hurting us so bad? I have prayed for my husband to not have this pain, but you know what?? He doesn't hear me. I am just poop, yeah that's me shit. It doesn't pay to be a good person. I wish I would have just died on the street." As I stand there holding Jesus' hand and feeling her pain and feeling totally helpless I have learned not to let go, but to hold on tighter or the world's pain will take me down. What do I do? I invite them to come to the Healing Room. I feel small. I hurt.
Then there is the big one. Our relationship is odd. He saved my life when nobody else had time. He stayed and he prayed and sometimes he dragged me through the muck of life to show me a God I was raging at. He cleaned me up and held my hand, while He held God's hand and prayed one day I wouldn't need him in the middle. The day came. Finally. When I watch my granddaughter at a year old I see me. She plays by herself, going from one thing to the next and then suddenly has to find mom. She doesn't need anything, just to know mom is there and she can continue in her play without a worry. I have done that in this relationship. I wander off, grow up a little, but always have to check in at some point. It's been the strangest 6 year relationship with more offs than ons, but when I learned of an inoperable brain tumor taking his life I went numb. I couldn't tell you how I felt. As I sat in worship at the Healing Rooms one day, my new mentor put it in perspective. It feels like you are losing a parent. I don't like the term but for lack of a better one, he was my first spiritual father, but it was more of a big brother. I always wanted a big brother and that was the only reason I could open up to him and eventually Jesus.
So as though these three are not enough there are more. Not nearly as close to me, but I pray for them regularly. A couple days ago a friend asked if we would go to her nephews house with stage four liver cancer and pray for him. As I am driving to meet my prayer warrior partner for the day, I begin the battle. Lord, go ahead of us and prepare his heart. That was as far as I got before my feelings came to the surface. WHAT AM I SUPPOSE TO SAY TO THESE PEOPLE?? What are we even doing here? So I pray for his liver to heal and I pray for the brain tumor, and does it do any good? Is it up to you or is it up to them? And then it hits me, WHY am I praying for them? They get to go be with you and leave me here to do the hard work. They should be praying for me. Then I laughed. I know it's not funny, but really, who is better off? So I go through this cycle of laughing and crying and praying and screaming and wondering and repenting and believing and not believing and asking and telling and laughing and crying . . . and so on . . . and more. Then He shows up.
When God shows up it is different every time. This day I catch glimpses as He stays mostly out of sight at first. But then I see Him clearly as my friends son (11 years) says I want to go pray with you guys. He even states that this man will be healed. That's a glimpse of God. We talk about God and the awesome stuff He is doing around us as we drive the short distance to the house. And as we sit with this man so wrecked by cancer that his skin color is nothing I have ever seen before, the Holy Spirit dances in between and around us setting the atmosphere in the room. Three sisters and a young man he has mentored and a few others gather with us as we wait to see how God moves. For privacy for the family I will only say, God blows my mind all the time. Ministry never looks like I think it will look. Healing isn't always what I think it should be.
This morning I read several posts online about "The Shack". I am so sick of the boxes we shove Jesus in. When I first read the Shack it destroyed my God boxes. I am so tired of religious people telling me what I should watch as they do their Holy Yoga and play with their idols. I don't do boxes. Jesus does not do boxes. What does healing look like? You can never say. If anyone of these three cancer battles ended in a death and like Elijah with the widows son, would their families trust God enough to allow someone to lay across their family members dead body? If I walked into a hospital room where the body lay would anyone (in their right mind by the worlds standard) allow me to lay across the body three times and believe me when I told them their loved one would be revived? Who don't you believe?? ME? JESUS??
If I hear one more time that Jesus is not an overweight black woman I will throw up. Are you kidding me? He is all things. When I went into intense ministry to heal from the wounds of sexual abuse and trauma, Jesus showed up to me as a little jungle boy. He looked just like Mowgli from the Jungle book. WHY? Because that was all the more I could trust Him. As I healed and grew He grew with me. Now Jesus shows up as a grown man. Who are you or anyone to tell me what Jesus looks like? He meets us where we are. Mowgli looking Jesus met me in my closet. There were many times as I walked through difficult moments in my healing that I would get a glimpse of a Mowgli looking Jesus in strange diaper looking garb, waving in a Forest Gump way and His smile alone would heal parts of my heart I didn't know were damaged. Go ahead and climb in your box and wait for Him. He showed up for me in a closet, but He never allowed the door to close behind Him.
“I often find that getting head issues out of the way first makes the heart stuff easier to work on later.”
― William Paul Young, The Shack
No comments:
Post a Comment