An Invitation

I've spent some time looking over my older posts. Cringing, laughing and often times just staring at the screen with my jaw dropped to the floor. I wrote that? There's some messy stuff in those posts, friends! Messy grammar, sloppy sentences and mostly, gory truth about some really hard things. At the time, I felt so convicted to just put everything out there and invite all of you into the mountain and valley landscape of my life. Now, it feels so vulnerable! So raw! And I'm grateful. Bringing all of those wounds to the light has ignited a chain reaction of healing in my life that only the gracious love of Jesus Christ could spark. Insisting that you're healed of things doesn't necessarily make you healed; what I found is that I had highly developed coping skills instead of strong and sinewy muscles of uprooting. Coping skills work for a period of time, but they mostly keep you from getting to the root of the pain. Let's admit it, pain is not our favorite destination to visit, let alone dwell in long enough to find the truth in it. I've learned that there is always truth in it though. So, I'm going to share with you what I've learned about pain, healing and moving on. So far.

The question posed for centuries, why does God allow pain? I'm not any kind of expert on God (He is so unfathomable!), but I am an ear-perked disciple of Christ, which puts me kind of in the know. Also, I've experienced the stuff pain produces. 

People cause pain, God does not. In Genesis when God was going about the creation business, He said something pretty profound after He created man; "let them have dominion over..." and then pretty much gives us dominion over every living thing. On Earth. Clearly separating Heaven from Earth, right? So, this shows us a rule that God made for us and Himself. It's called free will. He wanted a relationship with us. What good is a relationship without the freedom to choose to be in the relationship? Aha! It's not a relationship at that point, it is called domination. God expected that as His image bearers, we would reflect His love and that we would not dominate one another. This is about the time the slithery devil whispered in Eve's ear and messed it all up. Where did he come from?? That's for another blog post! The more important question we can ask is, why Eve? Not why, Eve?? But why did he choose to approach Eve. My opinion? The devil purposefully and maliciously usurped God's order. Remember, Adam was created first and was the leader of their twosome. Since the devil is full of lies and deceit, he craftily and spitefully went against the harmonious order God chose. Why didn't God do anything to stop this from happening?? He did. He created Adam. Only Adam did nothing, in fact Adam ate the fruit too. So when you ask the question about pain, it's important to revisit this story which has become almost mundane to most. The answer is, God gave us authority on Earth to be His image bearers. His authority was in Heaven. He created us to be Him, here on Earth. God won't even break His own rules because He is incapable of going back on His word. Man mistakenly trusted a very unreliable source and took it upon himself to think he knew better than God. Sin and death made their appearance and have been whispering in our ears ever since, causing us to treat one another with anything other than the love we were created to bear. Instead, we bear the fruit of the tree we stole from, rather than bear the fruit from the tree of life we were given full access to. 

Many of you may ask again, why didn't God do anything? 

He did. 

He put skin on and birthed His way into our world through the womb of a woman so He could save us from pain, bondage, sickness and death that our mistaken choice created. 

His name is Jesus Christ. 

He has authority here and in Heaven. He has authority to strike the serpent before it even whispers. He gave us the same authority. Are you walking in it or shrinking away from pain and feeling helpless to it? Pain is not your master. Pain is not in charge of you. You do not have to be in bondage to it.  

Pain? It will happen because of that misinformed choice in the Garden of Eve. We don't have to cause it though. We don't even have to wallow in it when others cause it. We still have a choice to bear the Love that was born and died here for us. God in all of His infinite wisdom and love, has kept His rules and still gives us a choice to love Him in return. He still wants that relationship with us and created a way for us to be brought back into that right relationship through a Savior. Only God. 

Hands weren't created to hurt. Hearts weren't created to be broken. Bodies weren't created for illness. Mouths weren't created to do harm. They were meant to comfort, love and give life. If someone has robbed you of these things, there is still hope.  There is always hope. 

Invite the living God into your pain. Let Jesus shine His light into the shame-filled, sketchy, messy, dirty corners of your home, heart and life. He wants to come into those places and fill them with remarkable light. God is not unfamiliar with pain. He took on a human body and was beaten and whipped to shreds so we wouldn't have to be. God spilled His blood to bring us into His presence and willingly let His body be broken so we wouldn't have to break into pieces. And if you're already in pieces, The Good News is that once you invite Him in, its only a matter of time until you're made whole. Complete. Alive.  

Just keep inviting Jesus in. 

"Truly, truly I say to you that whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgement, but has passed from death to life" John 5:24