Tag Archives: healing

When Religious Cliches Don’t Help

Kari Jobe Blog

Kari Jobe’s potentially awkward moment turned into a beautiful moment for healing hearts.

When an awkward lull happened at the Designed for Life women’s conference I attended a couple of weeks ago, I immediately knew what was going on.

I’ve not been pregnant yet, but with all of my kidney issues, I can relate to those frequently visiting the bathroom as their baby(ies) press(es) on their bladder.

The host, Pastor Debbie Lindell took the platform for an unplanned speech to help transition the evening service. There was a band already set up on the stage and I knew Kari Jobe was scheduled to sing some during the conference. I also knew she was in later stages of pregnancy and I laughed as I realized that she was probably in the bathroom.

I had just slipped back into my seat from the bathroom right as a video ended and Kari was scheduled to lead worship. Debbie jokingly asked if any women remembered being pregnant and their frequent potty breaks as Kari took the stage. Debbie then explained to Kari in front of about 9,000 women that she’d just told us that she was peeing! Kari confirmed this report into the microphone much to the amusement of all those attending.

When Debbie left the stage Kari shared how she wasn’t just using the bathroom, but she’d been cleaning off her smeared make up as well. She told of how her sister who was pregnant at the same time as her just lost her baby two weeks earlier. She was 7 months along and had a still birth. There was such a sweet presence of God in the auditorium that evening as we worshiped together which was healing her heart. At one point she looked up and a woman with her little baby girl came and sat in front of her and more tears fell.

What began as laughter quickly turned into tears as we all listened to her story through her choked up words and rawness. She went on to say how through this experience she’s realized that religious clichés don’t help-they actually shut someone down. And I lost it. I could relate with her now far more than just our frequenting the bathroom.

She’s right. When you’re in the midst of pain, loss, or suffering you don’t simply need to hear, “God will turn this around for good”, “God will come through!”, or “Just have faith”.

Nothing against anyone who thinks like that or has said those statements to someone as we’ve all been there.
It can be awkward when we are confronted with the pain and suffering of another person.
It often is a strange interaction, so when we as believers don’t know what to say we often say something we think sounds spiritual.
Maybe the thought process is,”if I say a scripture then I’ll be helping”.
Or maybe we’ve never felt the pain or faced the difficult scenario they’re in so we think there’s an easy answer, “just have more faith”.

Yet none of those things help. In all I’ve faced particularly in this season of life, I know that God is good and I know that He is going to work things out in my life for the good…”because I love him and I’m called unto His purpose” (Romans 8:28). It isn’t that I don’t believe in His goodness or that I’m not focused on the truth of God’s word. It’s just that walking through some situations are difficult and they demand more depth than a surface response.
When you’re walking through the questions and suffering the heartache of your circumstances, it isn’t helpful to find yourself shut down by others’ replies or by their silence.

When you feel confused about God or you’re trying to see truth through the sometimes murky and violent water of trials, you don’t want to be simply told that God is good. When faced with that doctor’s report you weren’t prepare to hear, having someone exclusively say, “God’s got this” as you wrestle the fears and make difficult decisions isn’t helpful.
You need to experience His goodness THROUGH others.
You need to experience His love encompassing every area of your life, including your questions and perceived failures.

You need to be ALLOWED to cry and really feel what you’re walking through and invite Jesus into that place of pain.

Sometimes our words can shut down someone’s heart from allowing real healing to take place.

I realize that facts about a doctor’s report or situation are subject to change. I know that we have all power and all authority through Jesus. I’m not denying that focusing on the TRUTH of the word of God isn’t applicable. It ALWAYS is and that’s exactly what needs to be focused on, but not at the cost of invalidating what someone is walking through and not being willing to walk  WITH them through their pain. We must be willing to look to the example of Jesus and how He walks with us in this life.

Jesus came to take on our flesh so that He would relate to our flesh both in victory and in sorrow.

One of the most impactful things that has ministered to my heart happened two years ago during a really challenging time in my life. I had been really sick for almost a year with various tropical illnesses, small seizures, and I was dealing with constant pain from misaligned ribs and hips from a car accident that caused great pain even with walking. Stephen and I decided to get away for a few days and our trip happened to fall around the anniversary of my cousin’s death. My cousin was my best friend and we’d grown up together as she was four months older than me. She battled cancer for 7 & 1/2 years before dying when we were 14 years old. Due to the difficult season I was in and our constant travel schedule, I was really lonely. Some people had said awkward things to me concerning my faith while others just pulled away. Other friends simply weren’t able to encourage me face to face as we were traveling so frequently. This caused me to grieve my cousin’s loss in a new way that year. One morning on our trip, Stephen took me outside and shared how he felt like he had a word to share with me. He sat me down and said that while he was praying that morning that he felt like Jesus said, “Tell Bailey that I know what it’s like to lose my cousin and I’m crying with her”. The words hit me like a load of bricks upon my chest and as I began to cry I felt something break off of my life. I felt the nearness of Jesus more in that moment than I had in any other moment of my life. Not because this was a happy moment that He was meeting me in, but because in my pain and sorrow, He met me and was crying with me. That made me want to pour my heart out in adoration and worship like never before.

I want you to know that no matter what you’re walking through or how lonely that you’ve felt in your heartache, Jesus is with you. He has experienced pain, suffering, sorrow, and sadness. He did this all the while being filled with the Spirit, in complete surrender and obedience to God’s will and fully knowing that His Father was good. Just because He was the Son of God who died for our sins doesn’t mean that he didn’t feel the pain and weight of our sin or the sorrows of this life. He can relate to you and speak to you more than any human ever can.

As religious Christianese circulates around you and questions stir within you, I encourage you to press past those voices and listen for the voice of Jesus. Hear what He is saying and let His love draw near in your time of hurting. Don’t allow your painful circumstances to steal your praise of the One who is worthy and wants to pour out His love. He hurts for you and He hurts with you. Worship Him and let the disappointment, offense, mistakes, and fears fall off. Lean on Jesus and get back up again–you were made to live victorious!

 KJ InstagramWell said Kari–thanks for sharing your heart and bringing others to the place of healing in Jesus.

Concealer

concealer

I am not one to use face make-up like foundation or concealer.

If anything I dust some light homemade bronzer on my face for a subtle glow. HOWEVER, I recently bought concealer a couple of weeks ago.

The reason for this is that for the past two years as I’ve had some complications mainly resulting from a car accident and international travel, I’ve had such poor sleep. It’s not that I CAN’T SLEEP, it’s that I have a bleeding kidney and other crazy things so I’m in the bathroom most of the night.

Truthfully I’ve not been very open about what I’ve been walking through because for the most part I look “fine” to the outside eye. It’s been a looooong long road and a few close friends know, but it’s hard to talk about and even writing this much is vulnerable.

I feel cold sweats writing this. Just kidding! :-P

I share this to say that most nights I sleep under 5 hours and sadly, I don’t have an adorable baby/toddler or a PHD for getting this amount of sleep.

I’ve had puffy eyes from the urinary issues and the concealer was a must-grab for the dark circles particularly on days when make-up is more necessary than other days.

That being said, here’s a recap of my morning yesterday…. We were in a town in Oklahoma at one of our supporting churches for a missions convention to help them raise funds for missions in 2015.

I was up all but 3 hours of the night.

Stephen had to speak at 2 morning services and he ingested food he was allergic to and sparing details, it was a fun night for both of us.

I dozed off finally for another 30 minutes before I had to leave for the 2nd, NOT the 1st service because I’m already that cool ;)

I was pushed for time and I had to pack up our hotel room.

It had poured all night and the freshly curled before bedtime hair was now a mess.

On went the concealer and eye make-up.

I went to curl my hair, dropped my curling iron and grabbed it…WITH MY HAND! If I didn’t have my lavender essential oil, I would’ve been in major pain, but I applied it quickly and then I tried to do something with my hair and ran out the door.

((Yes I brushed my teeth too—don’t worry! I lost my toothbrush in all of our traveling on Saturday, but grabbed one at the front desk the night before…actually Stephen did—my hero! ))

I was a hot mess walking out of this hotel and the wind was SO intense that all the attempts at making my hair look in any way decent are now gone…

…and honestly I was not in the best mood. I was trying to think of a worship song and nothing was coming to me. I had just had worship on in the hotel room, but my tired brain was now drawing a blank.

I ended up at a GOLF COURSE, NOT the church and had to drive a little further to get to church late. Awesome.

“Hi! I’m the Guest Speaker’s wife, late and distracting everyone as I make my way to the front row. Keep your eye on me because with my kidney issues, I WILL be distracting you more and going to the bathroom during service.” Sighs.

I took my place on the front row and thankfully worship was absolutely powerful. I immediately was grateful for the words to a song in front of me and my tired brain and I belted out singing SO loudly (and likely off key).

I didn’t want the enemy stealing my praise even after a hard night.

The Senior Pastor got up to pray for healing in the service and instructed people to press in with worship and focus on Jesus.

His wife, who was on the platform directing the choir leaned over and whispered into his ear.

He then called out for a gentleman by the name of “Mike” to come forward.

As Mike walked forward, his wife and a friend assisted him. He is fighting cancer and has been given a short amount of time to live.

A few gathered around him to pray and I darted across the sanctuary.

Compassion flooded my being and I began to weep over this man.

I saw his frail state.
I saw the pain in his eyes.
I felt a glimpse of the hurt he had been walking in.
More than that, I felt the love of God.

I stood adding my faith in agreement for his healing. My heart broke.

I knew my husband’s message would be good and I was expectant.
But I was distracted.

Distracted by the love and compassion that I felt over this stranger I’d never even had the privilege of meeting.

I am far from perfect and have some really rough days especially with crazy sleep, but I can’t hold back compassion. I’m thankful for God revealing His love and heart for others through difficult times.

You see while I might not share the details of my health journey with everyone, I’ve allowed God in to the details.

I’ve allowed His hope, His great love, and His compassion into my heart.

I’ve stood with close friends in desperate need of healing with a greater awareness of their suffering.

I’ve had some ugly things said and done to me during this journey from people who don’t understand what I’ve been walking through. And that has taught me even more so to be aware of what others might be walking through.

In the midst of all of this, I’ve felt God’s love through my suffering in a way I’ve never experienced.

It would be easy to shut down and not feel. It would be excusable to wallow in self-pity all day and not reach out to others.

With minimal sleep, there are so many excuses I could have for not partnering with God in this season.

The easy way would be to conceal what I’m going through and not allow God in.

I think of the song, “Let It Go” and how when the character Elsa is singing it, she looks down at her gloves and recites what her parents told her, “Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know….”

While the story line in the movie Frozen is a bit different from what I’m sharing here ;) , I think it’s very telling of where some of us find ourselves.

We conceal our feelings. We conceal our bad times. We shut down. We cut God out of the equation questioning Him and believing lies. We get angry and act from a place of hurt, rather than a place of love and compassion.

This is what the enemy would LOVE for our lives. He would LOVE for us to feel alone.

He fears us feeling the heart of God. He fears what would happen if we will allowed God to turn bad things around for good in our lives.

He wants us to suppress what we feel so that we will never move out of our comfort zones and minister to others with compassion.

And ultimately the enemy wants us to deny God and conceal the hope and confidence we’ve established in Him.

While concealer might be helpful for dark circles under our eyes on some days, it’s not fixing the dark circles. It’s only covering them up.

While we need healthy boundaries in our lives, we need to be an open book to the Lord and allow His purposes and love in our hearts even in difficult times.

There are “Mikes” out there waiting for your obedience to not conceal your love and zealousness for the Lord.

Take off the concealer and/or your Frozen hand gloves and step out and share the love of Christ with someone.

Please agree with me for Mike and his healing as well as peace and grace for his loved ones in this time :)

let-it-go