Sometimes it’s okay to not be okay. Through the Covid-19 pandemic, I’ve seen
others go through the same cycle I have gone through countless times during our
infertility journey. It starts with a
trigger from the circumstance that drags up an uncomfortable emotion – often
sadness, doubt, fear, or anger in varying degrees. We don’t like to sit too long with any of
these (whether they are coming from within or radiating from someone else), so
we often try to fix them or eliminate them as quickly as possible. If that doesn’t work, then we bury them deep
down under layers and masks of self-deluded okay-ness and try to deny that they
are even there. Next, we feel guilty or
ashamed (and those of us who follow Jesus also tend to think we must be really
bad Christians) for feeling this way at all.
Finally, we either give way to despair or muster up all the manufactured
faith, love, joy, and peace we can to try and make everything all better. But we wake up the next morning, and it’s
still not all better.
The freeing truth is that there is a
reason why we feel so unsettled when things aren’t the way we know they should
be. I first wrote about Lysa Terkeurst’s
book It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way and her teaching through the “two
gardens” in my post titled “Giver of Good Gifts,” and it is a message that has
stuck with me over the past several months.
We are living in a sin-mangled space between the perfect Garden of Eden
that is imprinted on our hearts and the hope of the new heaven and new earth
that are to come. A heart that is soft
toward God is still bothered when things aren’t as they should be because it is
aware that there is something far better!
Knowing this frees us up to let ourselves feel and name negative
emotions and to find healing as we allow God to guide us through the various stages
of grief over the devastating effects of sin.
He doesn’t want us to brush past our feelings or cover up the state of
our hearts with forced or feigned joy and peace. His Spirit will produce those things
genuinely (and repeatedly as needed) as we walk with Him in transparent and
surrendered dependence, even and especially when we don’t understand and don’t
know how to deal with what’s going on in our circumstances.
One of the most debated questions in
regard to our circumstances is why God allows bad things to happen in the first
place, particularly to those who love Him and have believed in His Son. We get that sin has consequences, and we can
accept that fact more easily when we see a direct correlation between our own
sin and our own consequence. However, we
really have a hard time stomaching horrible circumstances when we don’t have a
specific personal sin (or the sin of another) to blame. There are many reasons why God allows
suffering and sorrow into our lives (see “When Life Isn't Fair” for a more
extensive list), but the one that God brought to my attention recently was
through another book – Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for
Christian Families & Churches by Russell D. Moore.
In
Chapter 2, Moore describes the adoption of his two boys from a Russian
orphanage. One of the chilling scenes he
depicts is that of a nursery full of silent babies who no longer cried because
they knew no one would come to meet their needs. When he was finally able to take the boys
home out of that terrible environment, the transition to a safe home proved to
be unexpectedly difficult. As wretched
as the orphanage was, it was all that the boys had known in their short little
lives. Not comprehending the loving home
that awaited them, they reached back in fear and confusion for the
orphanage. Later, Moore draws from those
experiences to explain some truths about our own spiritual adoption: “But we
get too comfortable with this orphanage universe. We sit in our pews, or behind our pulpits,
knowing that our children watch ‘Christian’ cartoons instead of slash
films. We vote for the right candidates
and know all the right ‘worldview’ talking points. And we’re content with the world we know,
just adjusted a little for our identity as Christians. That’s precisely why so many of us are so
atrophied in our prayers, why our prayers rarely reach the level of ‘groanings
too deep for words’ (Rom. 8:26). We are
too numbed to be as frustrated as the Spirit is with the way things are.”
While
there is so much more I could share and discuss from that chapter, the main
thing that impressed on my heart was that sometimes I need to suffer in order
to remember where my true home is.
Sometimes I need to hurt in order to stop clinging to the things of this
world so tightly and to long for my glorious eternal home with my loving
Father. I don’t want to live a
comfortable and pain-free life that makes me content with this pit of sin and
numb to its atrocities. That is not to
say that I should seek out pain and suffering, but that I can learn to endure
it and even give thanks as it comes because it reminds me that this is not my
forever home. I have a good Father who
is going to finalize my adoption and take me home one day.
Until then, I need to allow the discord between what I know and what I see to drive me into His loving and understanding arms. He reminds me that there is coming a day when there will be no conflict between the two. He releases me to let the tears fall with the reassurance that He cries with me – even though we both know how the story ends. I need His Spirit to continually strengthen me and to teach me how to trust Him and navigate through this time between the two gardens. It may feel like it will never end, but His Word promises that this life is only a breath compared to what is to come – and then everything will finally, forever, and truly be more than okay.
Passages to Read
I
did a new thing….
As
all of these thoughts were rolling around in my head over the past couple
weeks, a short conversation with a friend was born out of them. That conversation sparked the first verse for
a song. Now, I’ve tried writing original
songs before, but I have never been successful at getting more than a snippet
here or there – a verse, an instrumental motif, etc. This one came so easily. Don’t get me wrong – it was still work, but I
never felt stuck like I have at other times.
Sharing any type of personal art is a vulnerable thing, but I hope that
what I wrote will encourage some of you as you walk through uncertainty and
sorrow and draw your hearts near to the tender compassion and the firm, but
gentle leading of God.
The In-Between
Rev. 21
Verse 1
God,
I know you’re here
God,
I know you’re enough for me
So
why this ache
That
says this isn’t how it’s s’posed to be
Pre-Chorus
In
a world I wish were black and white
All
I can see is this hazy gray
Help
me once again to see the day
Chorus
When
all my tears will be dried up
And
my sorrows fade from memory
I’ll
dance and sing, wrapped in your love,
In
the light of your majesty
When
the pain of this life is no more
And
death’s death is our victory
All
will be right, and new, and bright
We’ll
be with You for eternity
Help
me trust through the in-between
Verse 2
Lord,
I know what’s true
I
know what you’ve done for me
Still
I wrestle with
What
I know and what I see
Verse 3
And
I know You’re good
That
You command the wind and sea
Please
take this fear
And
clear away my heart’s debris
Pre-Chorus
Chorus
Bridge
The
discord of disappointment
Wages
war against my soul
Yet,
the fact I know that something’s wrong
Tells
me this world is not my home
Chorus 2
Where
all my tears will be dried up
And
my sorrows fade from memory
I’ll
dance and sing, wrapped in your love,
In
the light of your majesty
When
the pain of this life is no more
And
death’s death is our victory
All
will be right, and new, and bright
We’ll
be with You for eternity
Help
me trust through the in-between
Let this home etched in my heart come quickly
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