The Necessity of the Closet

It’s almost comical how much my own words and the convictions that the Lord has placed in my heart recently are coming back to encourage me on one hand and then laugh at me on the other with my general lack of what in that world I was talking about.

The fact that I wrote about pain and loss before three weeks ago is almost laughable to me.

But I did and, even in my naiveté, the Lord is using past writings to speak to me.

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Have you noticed that severe loss never leaves you the way it finds you?

We try so hard to get back to the way things use to be after loss, but what if what we really need, is to look for a new way. If this is true then loss holds a kind of fear, as well as pain.

Fear of the new.

Fear of the unknown’s.

Fear of the what-might-have-been’s.

The fear of the latter is possibly the worst fear of them all because it leaves you trapped in the past, paralyzed to move forward because you want so desperately to turn back the clock to where you were before the loss and pain found you. But what if the point of loss is to get you out of that place? What if the point of loss, the reason we feel it so acutely, is to let us know we are alive in a way we did not know before.

Pain lets you know that you are alive.

Joy does the same.

But why is it that we remember the pain more clearly than the joy?

Maybe it is simply to protect us from ever experiencing such pain again. As heartbreaking as it may be, some of life’s most valuable lessons come through events where we experience pain.

It never leaves you the way it finds you.

Had I to do it over again, there are many things I would do differently.

I’m so glad I don’t have that opportunity.

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I am tired of hurting. Such a constant throb of pain that never seems to go away; it creeps up on you when you least expect it and at times takes over your body in the form of soul wrenching sobs.

A pain so deep that it actually transcends who you are.

An ache so big you just wish it was all over and you were on the other side no matter what you have to go through in order to get there. During a long and drawn out death these words can haunt the inner recess of a person’s mind, becoming a kind of inner mantra.

“I wish this was over. I want this to be over so I can get on with my life.”

I said them when I was watching my Grandmother die of a brain tumor. I said them during a two-week separation before the subsequent break up with Brock. I said them during my last month at Exodus. I just wish it was over already…but isn’t there something to be said about the journey of grief? Isn’t there growth to be found in it?

Like most hard things in life, pain and grief would be so much easier to skip out on; to just quit. How many of us quit in the middle of a diet change and workout regimen? How many of us have that one closet in our home that we allow no one in because of the state of disaster it is in, and instead of doing the hard work of organizing it we leave it there simply because it is easier to do so?

Yes, it is easier to skip out on the pain, to not enter into our grief. Easier, but not better, because pain does something for us that nothing else on this earth does quite in the same way.

Pain. A constant reminder that we were meant for so much more and that maybe…one day we will have the more we were meant for.

It is not a new idea that even in the midst of our pain God is there. The knowledge of that truth has been forced down our throats so often, and at times in the most insensitive of moments, for us to forget it.

I remember being 17, a week away from losing my Grandmother to a brain tumor and someone at church said that I should be happy because she was going to be in a better place.

Sometimes I think Christians should just shut up.

Can I say that?

Rob Bell wrote in his book Velvet Elvis that, “Suffering is a place where clichés don’t work and words often fail.”

I think the reason we toss out clichés and empty words in times of suffering and pain is because if suffering is a place, sometimes we choose not to go there, we choose not to enter into that place, into that closet that rivals any natural disaster, with those who are already there.

It is just easier that way.

It is safer.

It is cleaner.

It is selfish.

And I confess I have been this selfish before and will probably be this selfish again, but that does not make it right.

Because you see, knowing that my Grandmother was going to be with Jesus was comforting but in the midst of loss, comfort is not happiness. Knowledge in the midst of loss is just that. It is intellectual and we don’t experience loss on an intellectual level we experience it on an emotional level.

Romans 8:28 says, “He works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purposes.”  (paraphrased)

I love this. I really do.

Knowing He won’t waste my pain if I allow Him to put the pieces of my life back together is awe-inspiring but sometimes in the midst of “all things” this verse is the last thing I need or want to hear.

Now, I do not doubt most of those who toss out clichés are well-meaning Christians but can I just implore you to care more. To enter into that closet of pain with another human being and let them know that you will be there with them until they take those first steps of progress without what it is they lost.

That is what Jesus did.

By His incarnation He entered our closet of humanity. And in case you didn’t know, He didn’t leave until He made a way for us to leave as well.

He was…is in it for the long haul.

Knowing that and knowing that our goal on this earth is to become more and more like Him, then why don’t we start?

Everyone wants to become more trustworthy. It is a noble attribute to have.

Everyone wants to become pure, holy, and righteous.

I know I want more of those attributes in my life.

But do you want to get your hands dirty? Do you really want to exercise your faith by walking into the closet of pain with a fellow believer, completely relying on the Holy Spirit because you have nothing of worth to offer the situation?

Recently I had dinner with some older couples. Some I had known my whole life and others I had just recently met. I spent a good portion of the evening catching up with one of the ladies I have literally known my entire life. Her family faithfully attends the church I grew up in and we began talking about this topic of pain and the necessity of entering into the closet with those who are in the midst of it and she shared something with me that broke my heart for her.

Almost a decade ago one of her sons fell away from the Lord in a very tragic and public way. Thankfully this story has a happy ending in that he returned to the Lord but the in between was painful and isolating to this Christian mother who felt she had failed.

For a two-year time period during her son’s rebellion she suffered from severe depression, so much so that she had to stop home schooling her two younger children. She described her existence of taking them to school and coming home to lie on the couch until it was time to get them again and all I could think about was why her friends allowed her to do that.

Day in, day out for two years.

Wake up. Take the children to school. Come home. Lay on couch. An occasional load of laundry. Pick up children. An occasional dinner prepared. Go to bed. Wake up. Start all over.

Day in, day out for two years.

As I was asking myself how her friends could have possibly allowed her to do that to herself and to her family she confirmed my suspicions.

No one ever called to check in on her, to see if she was okay.

How have we become so adept at putting on the smiling face on Sunday mornings only to take them off as soon as we hit the parking lot? How have we become so adept at not noticing those around us?

We have got to be more intentional about being present with the people in our lives. We have got to get over ourselves.

Through the seasons of pain in my life I have learned many things but two stick out to me the most.

Number one is that even in the midst of painful times, filled with adversity, the verse “I will never leave you and I will never forsake you” still holds true. We don’t get to decided when He meant this to be in operation. If He said it, it is true all the time not just the times where we feel Him.

Number two is that a troubled faith is better than no faith at all.

Did something deep inside of you balk against the last statement? I know it did for me the first time the Lord confronted me on it.

If God is big enough to speak the worlds into existence why do we think He can not handle our tough questions and troubled faith?

Friend, in case you have forgotten, He is big enough to handle anything you throw at Him.

It is when we forget this that shame is entered into the mix. In case you don’t know it yet the enemy has a habit of kicking us while we are down. It’s one of his specialties really and when he throws shame at us for even having those big, tough questions, instead of dealing with it and asking them and actually waiting to see what the Lord would tell us in response, we hide it from Him, as if that were even possible. There should be no shame in the questions, only caution.

Questions in and of themselves are not bad. In fact I think that if we could give God a choice he would rather us scream and argue our questions with him than say nothing at all. If God is who He says He is, and I believe He is, then He is big enough to handle all of my questions and even some of my ranting and raving.

I don’t know about you but when terribly awful things happen to people who are sold out to the Lord and they take it with grace and calm in public and try to make us believe that is how they take it in the privacy of their bedroom, I don’t believe them.

Maybe that is cynical of me, but I just don’t.

I love the Lord and I am sold out to Him and His Kingdom but when my relationship with Brock ended I took myself to The Table and the Lord and I had it out.

I remember looking up at the sky as the sun was setting and through angry, bitter tears I shouted, “Lord, I know that my purpose in life is bigger than he is and I demand You show me what it is!”

This was a pretty lofty demand from someone who had felt out of favor with the Lord for quite a while. Some of you would say that this reaction was disrespectful and you may be right but as over half a decade separates me from that night I know it was not in defiance that I demanded it of Him but it was in utter hopelessness.

I expected great things from Him because in my mind, I had nothing left to hope for, the pain cut that deeply.

No, I don’t think our questions are bad and I don’t even think the ranting and raving is bad, to a point. I think God longs to have the intimacy with His children that comes from us being completely authentic with Him.

It is what our questions keep us from that is bad. If you are at a point where your questions are keeping you from God, it is time to put those questions away and rely on faith.

Now let’s make this clear, faith is not the belief that things will be the way you want them to be.

It is the courage to face them the way they truly are and in the midst of pain sometimes it takes all the energy one person can possibly muster in order to do so.

But in the face of a troubled faith, do so we must.

Press through to the other side, friend. He is waiting for you!

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Over the last three weeks as I have been in my closet, as my family has been in our closet, there has been one question asked of us the most…”What can I do?”

Obviously there is nothing they can do to help Jeremiah physically but they still want to know what they can do. My initial response is to tell them to pray and while they are willing to do just that, praying isn’t enough for some. Some walk deeper into the closet and ask, “What can I do for you?”

To try and list all of the ways I have been carried through the last three weeks would be impossible.

There was a sweet friend who dropped off dinner at the hospital and then stayed up with me into the wee hours of the morning just so I could hash things out even knowing she had to get up early with her three little ones.

A worried friend who just yesterday left the church service when she saw me step out to make sure I was okay.

A silly game of questions with a friend and a magazine while we waited in the ICU waiting room that kept me thoroughly distracted.

Distant cousins who have given up their homes to my family who is in Birmingham with Jeremiah.

Hugs that communicate what cannot be expressed with words.

Prayers, prayers, and more prayers than we will ever fully know.

Some have walked into the closet only to stay a little while. Life demands it of them and I do not fault them. But then there are others who have set up camp in the closet with me. I look around and marvel at the goodness of the Lord in and through His people.

There truly is a necessity of the closet. In and through it we get to know Jesus on a level others never experience and while I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, I feel sorry for those who never have.

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