Holding Space

 I don't have to tell you that this has been a hard year. It's a collective experience. A brotherhood worldwide. All of us on planet earth have felt the frustration and sorrow of humanity, seen or experienced the groaning of nature. I've seen photos of tornadoes in hurricanes and tornadoes in wildfires. I read about a hurricane in Iowa. Iowa. If that doesn't tell you that this has been one doozy of a year nothing will. Except, of course, police brutality and the riots. The loss of life, good grief, the loss of life. From covid, from violence, from cancer, from old age, from accidents, from suicide. So. Much. Loss. 

I don't have to tell you, but I did anyway. We have to remind ourselves, even as we live it. We're so used to abolishing hard things until a more convenient time. We politely ignore suffering, we stubbornly refuse to admit we're struggling. And we can't figure out why we're so tired all the time, and can't sleep at night, and are also eating all our feelings dipped in salt and chocolate. 

You see, I think we don't give ourselves space to feel hard things. It's uncomfortable so it's better to just book ourselves solid, or distract somehow. It's hard to reconcile suffering and our misshapen ideas of a good God. So we don't. We hold onto our lumpy view of God and pretend we aren't suffering so we don't let him down or drop in status with him. 

Let me try to explain. I've come to realize that the prosperity gospel is much more rampant in american, perhaps most western, christianity than I previously would've admitted. It's really easy to point to the televangelists with really shiny teeth and glossy hair who are promising you "health, wealth, and happiness". Any dodo could hit that target. Although, I guess actually a lot of people don't....Anyway, there's a more deeply embedded strain of this prosperity gospel that's been running unchecked for a long, long time. 

It's in the idea that "I go to church, I'm a good person, so why isn't God giving me what I want?" It's in the notion that if you trust God and call on Jesus and claim his promises then you get to bypass hardship and go straight to joy. It's the concept that if you just have enough faith--not fear--then God will protect you. Or heal you. Or whatever. 

But when we examine these ideas against the scriptures, it takes about two seconds to realize it doesn't hold water. Joseph (of the amazing technicolor coat), David, Moses, Abraham, Jacob, Esther, Ruth, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Elijah, Eli, Job, Daniel....should I go on? They all experienced incredible hardship, loss, suffering, grief, and trials. That's just the Old Testament. You can't read the New Testament without getting smacked with the reality that Jesus himself suffered. He also told us we would have "trials of many kind". And then the book of Acts goes on to detail some horrible struggles the early church endured. Any history book on ancient Rome can fill in the rest. 

Soooo, there went the prosperity gospel right out the window leaving a gaping hole in our theology. Without a leg to stand on, we collapse unable to deal with our hardships. We don't know how to mourn with those who mourn because we believe we shouldn't have to mourn if we just trust God enough so he never has to "get our attention". As if those who are mourning are inferior christians. 

Except. Here we go again, Joseph mourned. He wailed so loudly everyone in the Egyptian palace heard him. And no one was even dead. But he was mourning all that had happened to him, all the pain he suffered because of his brothers, the years of relationship he could've had with them, and with his father. He was mourning deep, deep loss before he approached his brothers for reconciliation. 

Jesus wept. And before he did, Mary and Martha mourned. For three days they mourned. They buried lazarus. They had to figure out a plan for their future. Like Anna in Frozen 2, these sisters were mourning and figuring out the next right thing. And then Jesus arrived. And they carried their grief to him. Why didn't you come? Mary wanted to know. She needed to know. She was brokenhearted and doubt crept in where before only wonder and worship existed. 

Let me tell you, in 2020, I feel like Mary. For personal reasons and private hardships, I've been knocked over and winded with grief. Disappointment. Frustration. Even fear. Not covid fear, at least not entirely. But fear of what else is around the bend? Just how many shoes are going to drop this year? Are any of the lights in the tunnel not going to be trains to bowl us over again? That kind of fear. The fear that wants to suck your hope dry through a swirly straw. 

But I don't want this. I want to be strong, super christian who feels no fear and is able to leap pandemics in a single bound! Right? Isn't that what we're supposed to be? Who has time to mourn when there's so much to do? Just forge ahead, woman, don't stop to grieve. Don't linger with Jesus to ask him any questions. Stuff your feelings in a fanny pack and get going. 

Is that what happened in that story? Did Jesus turn to his brokenhearted friend and immediately give her the great commission? Did he repeat the Sermon on the Mount like maybe she just forgot about being salt and light? Did he pat her on the shoulder and mumble something about letting him know if she needs anything? 

Nope. He stepped into grief with her. He wept. And although the flannel graphs in my childhood never really depicted it this way, I feel pretty certain that Mary wept too. And Martha didn't hold her tears back before the Lord. There was space to mourn. There was time. The women had already been mourning for three days. And that was allowed. It was appropriate. All their sorrow, sadness, fear, and yes, even their doubt. There was space for it. Jesus didn't admonish them. He wept with them. 

And then, he restored what was lost. He brought their brother back to life. 

I started reading a book by john Eldredge called "All Things New" which thoroughly explores the promise of God's restoration. In truth, I ordered it from the library only because my word for this year was supposed to be "new". And lately it's been feeling like my word is "butt kick" so when I saw that John Eldredge had a book with the word "new" in the title, I snagged it. Well, I requested it from the library, waited for it to arrive, and let it sit for two weeks before cracking it open. 

I'm not sure I really wanted to be comforted. I wanted to stay angry with God for not giving me what I wanted. I wanted to sit in my sneaky prosperity theology because it's basically everywhere and it's easy. But then I went to counseling and my counselor said some things and so I opened up the book, just in case there was a word in there for me. 

And I wept. And then I read some more the next night and I wept again. 

And in my weeping, Jesus entered in. He's not withholding goodness like the bees that chase the hummingbirds away from the feeder outside our kitchen window. Those bees don't let the hummingbirds get that which was set out for them, to sustain them for their journey. No, Jesus is angry with those who do the withholding. He's angry, like we are, that the world is broken and people are mean. He weeps with me. I don't have to hide my tears from him. 

Why doesn't God just do x, y, or z and make the world a better place? For that, I defer to the world of Narnia and assume that there is deep magic, written before the dawn of time, that I do not understand but that cannot be violated even by God himself without catastrophic consequences. It's not that God is helpless; it's that there are boundaries he must keep and that costs him a great deal of pain. It cost him his own son after all. But there's a plan and it's a good one and we're worth it all to him. And in that, hope begins to glimmer. 

The hope we have transcends experience. Our experiences will hurt. And we will have doubts sometimes. We will grieve, and weep, and question, and rage at the universe. We live in a broken world with broken people making choices with broken hearts. Our hope must be bigger than now and here. It must be rooted in eternity and established in Christ himself. And then, we find the small hopes to light the road. The beauty of fantastic sunsets, the rich flavors of a perfectly brewed cup of tea, the aroma of chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven, or pine trees baking in glorious sunlight. The way we feel completely full inside when children are belly laughing over basically nothing, just because joy is accessible to the young at heart. The way we feel safe in a hug from a kindred spirit, a soul friend. 

Here's what I know right now in September of 2020, the God forsaken year. 

God has not forsaken us, and we're not failures of the faith for feeling hard things. In fact, we must hold space for suffering and mourning. Every hero of the faith in Hebrews 11 sure did. Mary and martha did. Jesus did. And we must cling to hope, even if it's only by our tiniest fingernail. And even if that hope manifests in the smallest of joys--a favorite song, a favorite wooded path, a favorite friend. Hope and grief aren't opposites; they're companions. Joseph wailed, remember? Even as his brothers and the hope of restoration waited in the next room. 

We have space to grieve and it makes space for hope. Denying ourselves the reality of suffering means we cut ourselves off from experiencing a deeper hope in Christ. In our suffering, we're more like Jesus, not less. And there's hope to be found there when we're ready. 

Personally, I'm still grieving but now it's with the awareness that Jesus can be in that space with me. I don't have to shove him out. And that has allowed the light back in. I'm still wondering what's around the bend, but holding space for some good. Surely, there will be good things. It's isn't all loss. 

In 2020, I've been disappointed quite a bit. But I've also watched my children grow. We've made memories and embraced simple pleasures. I've discovered new hobbies like sketching and watercolors. I've read some beautiful, hopeful books. I've listened to hours and hours and hours of music. I've been part of online communities that formed over books and banjos and cups of tea, but go on to bolster and encourage each other. I've learned how to sustain relationships in new ways, and how beautiful it is to feel valued and sustained by those relationships. I've wept with joy and love and gladness as well as grief. I've done hard things and walked hard roads but have kept my face toward the light. Maybe when I look back I'll be able to remember 2020 as the year when I learned how to hold space for grief and hope at the same time, and how to hold it all up the light to see how even the hard can sparkle.