A Doxology in Darkness - Chapter 4 - Unearthing

Sharon July 10th, 2008

I started seeing Ruth as soon as our busy schedules would allow. I truly had no idea what to expect from our time together, but I didn’t really care that much. I just needed to feel some relief, no matter what shape that relief may take.

I could never have predicted the life-changing healing I would come to experience.

Funny how we often look back on dramatic periods of time, and cannot for the life of us imagine what we were feeling just moments before the big event. It is as though the huge changes actually sweep all the energy from the preceding moments up into themselves, and make them part of the big event. Something like a tsunami.

They say that before a tsunami hits the beach, all the water first starts being sucked out, yards and yards away from the shore, being pulled into the gigantic energy force of the towering wave. Maybe big moments in our lives can be like that. I know some of mine have certainly born those marks.

I arrived at Ruth’s house, and walked through the door. I suppose I would’ve been nervous, had my depression not so completely blanketed and dulled all other standard emotions. She offered me water, and I remember speaking the word “yes,” through a fog of apathy. She then asked if I’d like ice in the water, and I answered “no, actually.”

“Interesting,” I thought, again through the same apathetic blur, “people usually just assume you do want ice.”

Ruth led me to her sunroom, directed me to the couch there, and down she sat in the chair beside it. She was such a pleasant lady, petite and very bright, with clear blue eyes, and a sweet genuine smile. From just looking at her, one would never guess such a deeply prophetic gift ran through her spirit. As I would very quickly learn, Ruth’s incredibly deep love for Jesus had led her to a kind of walk with Him that few of us ever take. Ruth had truly learned to listen. Not just through her Bible reading, which she did with a passion, but also through simply listening to the Holy Spirit’s still, small voice. God had given her a gift, and she had not buried it in the ground. Ruth had made a life’s path of asking Jesus about everything in her life, and truly waiting to hear His reply before moving in any direction.

And so it was, that this beautiful little lady sat before me, and simply asked why I was there. From that point on, all went from the relative quiet of the apathetic blur to the increasing rumble of the wall of water moving at a raging speed, deceptive to the naked eye, simply due to it’s enormity.

I told her everything, from the relationship with a non-Christian, through the breakup, and into the crippling depression. I told her all about Tom, and how much I had loved him. I told her he had been my prince, and the only man who had ever treated me with a shred of decency and respect. Finally, among other things, I told her about the emotional blast I had experienced a few days prior.

I don’t know how long I talked. But it seemed like an eternity. I never asked her, but I wonder if it seemed this long to Ruth as well. Probably, although she never let on.

She did, however, say a phrase I came to know intimately over the course of the next few months: “Let’s take it to Jesus.” And take it to Jesus we did.

We began to pray, and very simply asked Jesus to lead me to wherever He wanted me to go in my heart. We beseeched Him to reveal where my faulty thinking began, where something in life had wounded me into incorporating lies into my daily belief system.

And as we prayed, time and time again He did just that. He took me to memories which I often thought must be a mistake, because they seemed so innocuous at first glance. But then unfailingly, after asking Him to clarify what He was trying to show me, the truth would always surface. Jesus would actually come into the memory, whether painful or just matter of fact, and would unveil to me where He was during that experience, and better yet, would even speak truth to me about the situation. The truth that was invisible to my human eyes at the time. And with those words, He would forever change the very face of the memory. The lies that I had carried away from various experiences would be disabled permanently, and the truth would come triumphantly to the fore.

Jesus addressed my abandonment issues, which had, deep down, way below the surface of even my understanding of myself, caused me to believe God wasn’t actually good.

I had received quite a few wounds throughout my life, ranging from molestation as a child, to infidelity of my Christian ex-husband, which had planted the seeds of disbelief. Imperceptibly, I had stopped believing that God had my good at heart, and the final straw was my perception of finally meeting a wonderful man in Tom, only to have him “yanked away” from me.

My incorrect thinking about who God is, and my disbelief that He was truly good, came to the surface that night of screaming in the car. Finally, I was able to see it. But it was only a start.

My Abba’s still small voice became a regular presence in daily communion with Him. And although it had been there all along, I had never really taken the time to listen. Sometimes He spoke one word answers, sometimes beautiful poem-like discourses. But however He chose to do it, He was leading me and guiding me into a completely different facet of my walk with Him. A much fuller attention to His leading.

During one of these prayer times with Him on January 10, the Lord whispered a life altering truth to my heart. I had been feeling a particularly deep sadness over Tom that day, in spite of all the healing I had experienced throughout the previous two months.

In my despair, I cried out to God, “Jesus, how can I utilize this deep sadness? How can I turn it to good? Why is it necessary? Can’t you take it away?”

At first glance, the response that followed seemed impossible to swallow. He said:

“Oh Honey, I am sorry. This is what has to be done. It is truly the only way. It is meant for good, not evil. It is truly all in the plan.

Just breathe deeply and try to ride it out. Try to give it to Me.

My Kingdom come. My will be done. Rest in patient assurance that what I say will manifest. Your pain is but an instant. It manifests as pain, but it is truly recognition of My authority. Of the complexity of My expectations. It is drilling a hole for my Spirit to fill. It is causing intercession on the deepest level. It is good. It makes you strong. It makes you fight valiantly. It delivers promise. It is a means to an end.

It is truly My pleasure. It is that kind of fasting which produces results. The kind of fruit that never goes bad. It is perfection through sorrow. My claim on your heart.

In time you will see that all is as it should be.”

Slowly I read and re-read these words of bitter beauty. And just as slowly, the realization alighted on my hunched and shaking shoulders like a cloak: The pain itself is a good thing.

In that instant, I got a glimpse of much greater verity what Jesus was planning to divulge to me in the weeks ahead. Not just dealing with pain in my life, but instead embracing it. That sometimes, just as a bone which has healed incorrectly has to be re-broken, causing pain, our hearts can experience tribulation and aches which are intended by Him, for the correction and healing of our souls. What a foreign concept to most humans.

God is a loving God. This is a perennial truth. Anyone who seeks to walk with Him and foster a relationship with Him desires to believe this through and through. Therefore, when I attempt to say to someone, “God actually takes pleasure in some of the pain you go through, simply because of the beautiful metamorphoses it is working in you,” I often meet with fierce opposition.

That is truly fine with me, for the response is only due to my lack of proper semantics. It is a hard truth to articulate in any way that makes people feel comfortable. However, it is in the uncomfortable feelings themselves that the very life and breath of revelation is born.

More and more I have come to believe it is a deep reality for which there is desperate need of comprehension, in order to facilitate our survival as followers of Christ in this broken and joy-depleted world.

When I say this, I in no way contradict the truth that God is a loving God. It may sound thus, but I am instead confirming that God is a loving God. If He weren’t, our pain would be of no use to Him. He would not care one way or the other about setting our broken bones, or removing our cancerous tumors.

But He does care. So much so, that He is willing to lead us directly into painful situations at times. And albeit through the gritted teeth of His own distress at our affliction, when we beg and plead with Him to remove the source of our agony He gently says, “No, child. I will not remove it. It is good. Just hold onto me. All is well.”

That day, these seeds of realization were planted in my consciousness, yet I did not see them again for quite a few weeks.

Tucked away in my heart, the little kernels underwent a season of germination. And once they sprouted their tiny heads up again in my heart, I would be in the place I needed to be to recognize and tend to them. And one day, far down the road, I would even be fit to bend my back to their harvest.

God’s timing is always perfect, isn’t it?

Whether we like it or not.

Don't miss chapters one, two and three of A Doxology in Darkness.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 10th, 2008 at 11:22 am and is filed under Anger, Christianity, Dating, God, Healing, Jesus, Loss, Pain, Prayer, Religion and Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.