Your Sorrow is Yours Alone: The Inexplicable Nature of Grief

No chance has brough this ill to me;
‘Tis God’s own hand, so let it be.
He seeth what I cannot see.
There is a need-be for each pain.
And He one day will make it plain,
That earthly loss is heavenly gain.
Like as a piece of tapestry
Viewed from the back appears to be
Naught but threads tangled hopelessly;
But in the front a picture fair,
Rewards the worker for his care,
Proving his skill and patience rare.
Thou art the Workman, I the frame.
Lord, for the glory of Thy Name,
Perfect Thy image on the same.

Arthur Christopher Bacon

Easter came early this year and now I know it isn’t about a calendar date as it is the season itself that is intricately woven with Anya’s passing. Try as I may, I could not find solace in the anticipation inherent in the season. This year I had no Easter reflection beyond my misery. Sorry.

It’s been 4 years complete yet this was no easier in any sense that I can conjure. It has been difficult and I can only wonder why, why a pulsing stump should hurt so much. I am unable to spiritualize it. Why is grief like amata dance; you go a step forward and two backward? There’s hardly any sensible pattern.

What is it about grief that makes it so unpredictable? How was it better last year than it is this year? I have yet to master its grip; once it comes it must run its course. I can never tell when it is upon me until I have exhausted all possible reasons why I am so miserable.

Whenever I find myself gravitating towards old loves–old pleasures like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, or thrifting for artwork, or nature walking–and unable to stop myself, I know something is emotionally and mentally off.

Grief makes me seek consolation in seemingly innocent, pleasurable divertions. I seek escape in unreality; whether it is Elizabeth Bennet’s wit, or Jane Bennet’s angelic disposition, and especially Mrs. Bennet’s foolery in this drama-packed world of Austin’s creation, or a landscape of an ideal world. These cheer me up, no matter how temporary.

What is grief and how may one describe – if not define – it? I am learning to avoid any pretense that I know what it is or understand its operational state; not in myself let alone in others. I am stepping back to observe its behavior in me, not so I may come up with a “theory of grief,” but to process aloud and perhaps survive its plague.

Grief, I have come to realize, is beyond merely a psychoemotional state but a personality, a messenger, a chastiser (2 Cor. 12:7). True, it is marked by deep distress and emotional restlessness. As a mental state, it is marked by an absence of peace that results from a sort of mental incoordination; the inability to piece together phenomena in a way that makes sense. It is the absence of an acceptable explanation for one’s suffering, past or present.

But more significantly, grief as sorrow is a state of being. To be sad is one thing; to be sorrowful is quite another. Sadness is merely emotive. To be sorrowful on the other hand, is to suffer as a human whole: mentally, emotionally, psychologically, and in fact, physically. Sorrow tires out. It is also a state of spiritual distress that is intrinsically personal. Perhaps I am making this up. Sadness and sorrow may be merely opposite ends of the grief pendulum.

Now to the matter of the personal nature of grief. My grief is more than a passing shadow but a personality. I feel sometimes that it is intelligent; having a mind of its own. It has no obvious appearance as it was in the beginning. No one can tell I am grieving, sometimes not even myself – at least not immediately. The only comment I receive is, “You look tired.” Yes, I am tired. I am always tired. Grief weighs heavy on me when it comes, but so have other cares.

This leads me to wonder about the ministry of consolation. Is it possible to say that one can share in another’s sorrow? Would that not be like claiming to share in another’s hunger? Indeed, someone may decide not to eat in solidarity with someone else, yet both can only feel their individual hunger and not that of the other.

To mourn with those who mourn then may mean to allow oneself to feel the same emotion they feel, but not exactly what they feel. It’s taking me a while to discover this and it is making me shy away from those who grieve. It is such a personal, sacred space I dare not enter uninvited.

Those who sympathize or even empathize with another can only do so in their own way and not within the same experience that the sufferer inhabits. It is only the grieving who can invite anyone close enough. They usually invite only those with whom their hearts are touching; those they love and trust.

Love knits hearts in mysterious ways, in ways that make consolation possible. But even this fades with time; you become alone in the grief you now inhabit. It gets too old and meaningless to share. It simply becomes your reality and in some part, your unnamed identity.

Really, every human experience is fundamentally personal. We can enjoy a view as a group, but each one experiences the view alone, in a personal way. Even a delicious meal can only be enjoyed at a personal level. Collective experience has its limits. It may generally be a shared experience only as far as it gets.

The Bible alludes to this seeming paradox. While we are to bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), we also must each carry our own load (v5). We must hold these seeming contradictions in tandem and not presume that we can take away a cross another must bear or assume that others can share our own.

Nevertheless, I must clarify as I end that my grief is not a constant. It is a seasonal visitor who shows up whenever it wants, uninvited. I cannot treat it as a guest either, for it takes over whenever it shows up. Indeed, it must finish its course and I, on my part, must yield to its discipline. I am grateful its visits are increasingly rare if not less devastating.

Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then I am strong (dynamite).”

2 Cor. 12:10

Happy Birthday, Anya!

Dear Anya,

Thanksgiving came a little too early this year. Your birthday should’ve been on Wednesday. I kept thinking of you all Wednesday. Winter, on the other hand, seems reluctant. When you were born, snow was everywhere. But never mind all that.

I have very little to say today. My humanness has never been more revealed or worse still, more painful! It is not that I am forgetting you; my memories just seem too old; out of touch, sort of.

You have become so distant that I feel like I am losing connection with you, memories nonetheless. Oh, how wretched!

Strangely, though, I can imagine you as an eight-year-old, but the soft cheek that still rubs against mine in my memory, and the cold, bare teeth of your smile touching me, are those of the four-year-old I knew.

Perhaps I can imagine an eight-year-old you because I am back in Ludwigson with the kids you used to play with. They are so grown. How lucky their mothers are to still have them!

But I do imagine you uniquely growing up as Anya; just that it doesn’t feel like “my Anya” anymore. I have no experience with the current you.

My humanity is revealed, not only in the distance I feel from you but also in the fact that I have no other conception of what you must be like in the present, except in the natural pattern of growth for a human child.

I don’t know what growth looks like for you; your needs if you have them, or the nature of your contentment, if I can imagine it. Oh that I can peer into the heavens to glimpse what life is like for you now.

Or, are you beside me but in a vastly different existence that I cannot envision even in my wildest imagination? Could be, though I doubt it. Oh, the wretchedness of it all!

I must admit that you now have an existence clearly detached from mine. I can no longer hold to your memory in any way that retains a sense of your dependence on my maternal love and care,

Very little in this life depends on me and I am thankful that it is so. I cannot will anything into being or hold to what is, except what is given to me in the moment it is given. I fear that I ruin even what is given…

Mercy brings me blessings, and mercy withholds them when it chooses. I have no control even when I must choose my path every day. How free is my will, really? That we have free will is a mockery if we can’t will anything to be or will it away.

No matter how earnestly I wish them away, painful memories remain. The pain may dull with time but it remains nonetheless. And I can’t seem to stop repeating old mistakes, compounding my misery. We are so much creatures of habit that we seldom change our ways.

I am not complaining, at least I hope not. All I am saying is that Grace keeps me as I am unable to keep myself. Grace enables me. But I have come to understand that even my mistakes are sometimes meant to be. It is futile to live in a circle of regrets.

I feel like the Psalmists sometimes. I wish I could express myself as they did. I have no axe to grind with God; He’s been exceptionally good to me.

I have never blamed him for your death; how can I when I know that he knows and holds all things and that he loves us both with an unfathomable love? I did and still wish he stopped it.

I am sure if you could write me back, you would make me see that, indeed, all things work together for the good of those whom God has chosen. Your death was never a mistake. It is myself that I pity because this truth does elude me sometimes.

I will be fine, in any case. Painful memories nonetheless. My mistakes don’t define me. I have hope, grounded in something better than my humanity and much deeper than life itself; deeper than my mind can comprehend.

The lot has fallen for me in pleasant places, surely I have a delightful inheritance. Yahweh is my portion and my cup; my great reward! (Psalm 16:2, 5-6).

Happy birthday, baby girl! Enjoy His presence until I come.

The Triumph of the Son and the Joy and Pain of Rememberance.

The Cross of Christ is a truimph for the Son of Man. It was not only a sign that Our Lord has truimphed, but that he had truimphed to save the human race.

Olswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, 1935.

Today, April 9, the church commemorates Resurrection Sunday. It also marks three years since Anya died; what a joyful coincidence. I should have no difficulty reconciling the two events: because he rose again, Anya will rise again.

Anya died on April 9, 2020. It’s been a very long journey. The years have moved on very slowly indeed. I can’t believe it’s been only three years! It seems like an eternity has gone by. The shadows have been long and the haze intermittently persistent. But the coldness has eased.

I would say that the gap between each wave of sadness has changed in rhythm as well; the intervals are now longer and the sorrow more surreal. Very strangely, it has become the hallmark of hurt for me.

I gauge how deeply something has hurt me when the pain triggers the pain of Anya’s passing. I have caught myself mourning her afresh many times after some entirely unrelated things occurred that was deeply painful.

It could also be that it feels so long ago because so much has happened in quick succession with my family that it feels as if we’re in a different existence from the one in which Anya passed. Yet I have become a slow motion.

I am yet to understand exactly why it takes me longer to do almost everything. Initially, I thought it was a passing consequence of grief. God however has seemed to pick up pace in my life and in the life of my family! I am deeply content to let him take the lead.

I expected to be joyful this weekend, but I am sad. I am sad that Anya died at all. I do not question God’s purposes or his love for my family, but it still doesn’t make it easy. I am nostalgic about a glorified past simply because Anya was in it. I am quite wistful…

I am sad that Jesus had to go through what he went through. It all seems so unfair. I grieved afresh this Easter for all that he went through and the dreadful cross he bore, so much so that it all mixed up for me with grief for Anya.

I know why he did it, and I am deeply grateful, yet I wish that sin never happened…

But sin happened. And if I am to apply my mortal mind to thinking why it happened, it will be like giving a college math equation to a toddler to solve—actually even worse. This life is a mystery and I am happy that God is not only in the picture but in perfect control.

It takes no exceptional mind or spirit to know that this world is deeply broken. Its very foundation pulsates with evil. There is no realm in it that is untainted by the effects of sin. Until one can come to terms with this fact, there’s no way to come to terms with and appreciate what Jesus Christ has done.

Death is not merely the absence of breath but a spirit of darkness and oppression. My close encounters with death have revealed that it is the deepest, most unyielding form of human suffering. The sense of finality in spite of hope is torturous. Death is punishment indeed.

That Jesus took this punishment on himself is no small matter. To move quickly to celebrate the Resurrection without first pausing to assimilate the magnitude of what it caused him is unpardonable! I am convinced that this is why Jesus instituted the Holy Communion; that it may be a remembrance of what he suffered:

[A]nd when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.’ 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

1 Corinthians 11:24-26

The Holy Communion is not just a remembrance but a proclamation of his death. Why did Jesus want his followers to remember him by his death and not only his resurrection? So that we may not treat his suffering lightly by taking for granted what he suffered.

When I walk away happy that my sins have been forgiven, I must recognize that God is not treating my sins any less seriously than he did in the Old Testament for example, but that I am freely forgiven because God decided to take the cost on Himself.

This is why Jesus could tell people “Your sins are forgiven.” He knew it would be fully paid for. It is only the Son of Man who can forgive sins; the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, who has triumphed is the only one able to open the scroll of judgment because he is the Lamb who was slain (Revelation 5:1-5).

He paid for sins once and for all, yet he still pays for every sin committed, not sparing anything. We are allowed to rejoice and celebrate the Resurrection, but with sobriety and deep reflection on the price. When we fail to do that, we are judged.

For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. 30 That is why many among you are weak and ill, and a number of you have fallen asleep. 31 But if we were more discerning with regard to ourselves, we would not come under such judgment. 32 Nevertheless, when we are judged in this way by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be finally condemned with the world.

Verse 329-32

I am still slow, very slow. I am learning that I have been eternally changed in significant ways. I think that I now understand the beauty and wisdom in being given the cross before the crown. The cross breaks you and leaves you permanently limping; only a head humbled by the cross can wear a crown.

My passions have changed. To be “Blessed” has a different meaning for me now. The Lord is merciful and kind in providing for my and my family’s needs, and this is a blessing indeed. But the one true blessing in life as in death is God Himself.

My life is a play before the audience of one whose approval I most desire and must pursue. The crowd is ceasing to matter at all. Before this audience, at His feet, I gladly lay all my crowns.

I look into this Resurrection morning with renewed hope. What the cross has accomplished has never been more appreciated by me. I cannot begin to say exactly how much my entire hope depends on it, both now and in the life to come when I finally meet Anya again.

Without a night, there would be no hope of a morning, and the darker the night, the brighter the morning will be. This was true for Jesus and it will be for all who believe and walk in his steps. The depth of what he accomplished may never be fully known on this side of heaven.

What is important, of course, is that the debt has been paid—praise the Lord!!! And humanity can now breathe again. Happy Easter!!!

The Lonely, Suffering Saviour

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem…

Isaiah 53:2b-4

The entire life of Christ was one of passion/suffering. It must be if God would become man. But of all the mysteries of the incarnation, the one I find most puzzling is the kind of humanity that Christ chose.

Jesus was an extraordinary man and many didn’t miss that. They saw him for who he was and believed in him. Yet for many more who were accustomed to the world’s standard of acceptability, there was a veil, a thick veil that covered his glory.

I am sure we all know a person or two that we once (or still do) consider as unattractive; so unattractive, in fact, that we may have an inexplicable resentment towards them.

Perhaps it is even you whom others have considered unimpressive, without physical looks or class to admire. Even your abilities are viewed with suspicion. Consider for a moment that Jesus was that kind of person.

Even more alarming, consider that perhaps you may have disliked him if you were in his generation. If there is any human person you could despise today because they don’t measure up in appearance, then it is very likely you would’ve been among Christ’s despisers rather than admirers.

The thought scares me because there are people I knew whom I held in very low esteem. And were they to have claimed that they were anyone important, I would have been irritated. I personally know what it means to be despised, rejected, and ignored. I have done the same to others.

Jesus was so unattractive that many were suspicious of the fact that he could perform the miracles he performed. The ability to perform such signs was so unrelatable to his kind of person; the son of a carpenter from Nazareth or even worse; it was rumored that he was a bastard.

The desperate crowd followed him because they needed his help, yet many among them were just as ready to stone him. He could not trust the crowd because he knew they had no true regard for me. They turned against him several times, and on that fateful Passover night, they shouted “crucify him!!”

Yes, God needed to become man to save humanity from its bondage to sin and death, but did he have to become that sort of miserable human? Did his work of redemption require that angle of suffering? Couldn’t a decent guy from a decent family with a decent appearance do it? Did “the Christ” have to be so unattractive too?

The mysteries of God are beyond understanding, but perhaps for someone like me, this piece of the puzzle shouldn’t be as puzzling as it seems. If Jesus had not become such a miserable man, I could find no comfort in him or any affinity.

I would still believe that he’s all-powerful but could not believe that he can relate to my misery or those of others I see or hear about. But I absolutely believe in Jesus more now because of this fact.

He is indeed the savior/friend because he alone understands wretchedness in ways I cannot trust another human who hasn’t been through it to understand. And all the better as he alone can fix my wretchedness.

There have been different renditions of the person of Jesus of Nazareth in movies and despite good intentions, every one of them brings with it some specific portrayal of his person as revealed in Scripture but never quite all of it.

The theoretical analysis garnered from extra-biblical texts (like the history of his time from other sources) may be accurate, and the theology may even be perfect, but the actual experience of what it means to be Jesus of Nazareth would still be lacking.

Those who have experienced intense suffering of poverty and utter rejection usually lack assess and resources to act in such movies yet to them, the experiences of Jesus would be so relatable.

Those with access and resources to create such movies or act in them often have no clue; they grew up in privilege. Mel Gipson had quite an experience in the Passion of the Christ, but perhaps he still may not be able to perceive just what Jesus’ experience of growing up poor and despised might feel like.

In fact, even Jesus’s personality comes off differently depending upon what aspect of his person receives the most attention from those who want to act out his earthly life. Being themselves humans, their own personalities and socio-cultural presuppositions rub off a bit on the Christ they are portraying.

That is the point I am trying to make: that Jesus of Nazareth had to become those things so that he may understand what it “feels” like to be such a human, if not for his benefit (so he could be a compassionate High Priest) then for the benefit of those kinds of humans whom he came to save along with everyone else who believes.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

As for his loneliness, it is inconceivable. How lonely would you be, say, as C. S. Lewis demonstrates in Beyond Personality (1945, p.29) if you were to become a slug or a crap? There! Becoming any kind of human for a God must have been something even worse, let alone becoming the lowest of the race.

But even as a man, a man who knew things that no one else knew or could understand, he must have been very lonely. He was dismayed by the disciple’s unbelief and incapacity to understand. He was lonely in Gethsemane as he was in Golgotha.

Imagine the passion week over 2000 years ago. His heart heavy with grief from the realization that the dark hour had drawn near, he takes his disciples with him to Gethsemane to pray.

He lives the rest and takes the 3, the closest and most reliable of the group, so they may go and pray with him. Alas! They were too sleepy to keep watch! He comes back and wakes them and asks them to watch with him, but whenever he turns his back they fall asleep.

When he was finally arrested and then sentenced unjustly, there were no protests. None of those whom he helped could speak up in protest. His disciples had fled and his closest yet denied him.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
    Yet who of his generation protested?

verse 8

No one. Those who cared were themselves in hiding. They had no power to save or even negotiate for his release. They feared for their own lives because he who was their safety was himself in trouble.

Even for strong devotees like Mary Magdalene who did not fear for her own life but made the dangerous trip to the tumb, there was nothing she could do to save him. For…

it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
    and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
    and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
After he has suffered,
    he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
    and he will bear their iniquities.

verse 10-11

A Call to DIE… and Find Me Again!

Of course I know that the Enemy [God] also wants to detach men from themselves, but in a different way…. When He talks of their losing their selves, He only means abandoning the clamour of self-will; once they have done that, He really gives them back their personality, and boasts (I am afraid, sincerely) that when they are wholly His [God’s] they will be more themselves than ever.

C. S. Lewis, The Screw Tape Letters

Have you ever wondered that when Jesus said, “Come to me, you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,” he was speaking of the impossible burden of self which we all tend to carry? Yet, the very invitation is a call to an impossibility!

At some point last year, I became desperate to know my purpose and calling in life. You can call it a mid-life crisis, or simply the angst of a woman who once had a strong sense of calling and a clear purpose but lost it somehow. And that was not the first time.

I was surprised when I sensed God telling me he is my purpose and that my calling was to love him and seek him with all my heart. How was that to make me any different from any other Christian, I wondered? But that is the point!

Too many times have I worried about my calling. At one point I believed I was called to be a missionary. Then I became so burdened about the church that I thought, “surely my calling is for the church; for believers rather than unbelievers!”

Then I thought it was to teach God’s word. I did enjoy teaching the Bible, especially to women. But I had never been an articulate and fluent speaker, and it was always somebody’s material that I used. No matter what I did, I had my moments of struggle and self-doubt.

So I decided that perhaps I was meant only to be a wife and mother after all! That seemed the only thing I did without effort (well, not entirely without). I’m a good homemaker and a hostess. I would’ve saved myself money, time, and tears if I had not presumed to go to the seminary.

And now my calling is to love God and seek him with all my heart??

Let me use two men in Scripture to describe what came to me: Saul and David. They were more alike than different, mere humans like us: flawed, tempted, and made mistakes. Both were great warriors and kings, but they differed in one significantly more important way: in their hearts.

David sought after God and Saul seemed unable to do so. When it comes down to it, this is the only important difference between people. All of Saul’s best efforts were self-initiated and directed. No matter his good intentions, they were “efforts” rather than obedience.

Saul was a pragmatist who did whatever worked best in his judgment. When Samuel delayed in coming and men were deserting him, Saul decided to offer the burnt offering himself (1 Sam. 13). When God said to destroy the Amalekites and all their possessions, Saul spared the best things for practical reasons (1 Sam. 15). This reminds me of something Oswald Chambers said:

practical work may be a competitor against abandonment to God, because practical work is based on this argument—”Remember how useful you are here,” or—”Think how much value you would be in that particular type of work.” That attitude does not put Jesus Christ as the Guide as to where we should go, but our judgment as to where we are of most use.

My Utmost for His Highest (selections for the year), March 4th.

The Bible measures people by those who walked with God and those who didn’t—that’s all. That is the calling. Consider a soldier, for example. S/he is called to serve his/her country. Whether he be an engineer or she a chaplain, the call is one: to be a soldier.

Those who did (walked with God) seem to lose themselves in the process and yet, somehow, found their true purpose. They fell and rose in their attempt to walk with God, and it became all that mattered in the end.

David flourished because of his heart and Saul was undone for the same. David did not become perfect because of his heart, but it moved him in the right direction while Saul’s heart moved him in the opposite direction from God.

While we talk about human virtues and vices (for good reasons), all that a human person really is is his/her will, a will that is oriented one way or another, towards God or towards self. One can do pious deeds for self too, you know?

My problem is that I have lived too long among well-meaning Christians who expect you to know your place in the body of Christ. To say simply that one’s calling is to know and love God wouldn’t be particularly satisfying. We’re told there must be something specific you’re called to do.

True, the Bible alludes to the concept, but God calls people to himself and then consecrates them for a particular service. For example, God said to Jeremiah, “…before you were born I knew you and set you apart…” (Jeremiah 1:5).

Jeremiah’s ministry had nothing to do with Jeremiah but with God. Like Moses before him, Jeremiah completely had no gifting or any sense of ability to do what God was asking him to do.

Apart from God’s revelation, Jeremiah could never have chosen the path. His passions and disciplines could very well be unrelated to that particular revelation, and yet, in a way, God had been preparing him all along.

“Follow me and I will make you…”

“Jesus does not bring anything up from the wells of human nature,” says Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest. He brings it from on high. He says, “Follow me and I will make you,” (Matthew 4:19). Again he says, “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone,” (John 12:24).

To be self-oriented is to believe and live as though life itself is a fair of opportunities and how well I fare is entirely dependent on how well I play my game and will it to my advantage, even when it comes to ministry. Most of the time, the messages on self-improvement and self-confidence boil down to this.

We’re told, “it is up to you to get where you want to go.” We are given formulas called “training” on how to mass-produce success: “Ten steps to a successful marriage…” The church tells us this, but curiously, the world tells us the same! Something is wrong.

Humanism has taught us to depend on human capacity yet the Bible tells us the flesh amounts to nothing. Well, history has much to prove that we weren’t wholly misguided; humans have succeeded in creating a new—and something that would’ve been thought of as an impossible—world!

However, the other side of the coin is that history has much to prove to the contrary as well, bringing with it a growing disillusionment with humanity. So, it turns out the Bible is right after all, flesh amounts to nothing! At its best, its achievements bring more death than life.

Yes, I have a calling, but it is to God himself. Whatever needs doing, God does it. Whatever is needed, he will bring it down from above, from Himself. Anything that will please God must come from God himself.

To be God-oriented is to believe that this existence called life in which I find myself, is a game of forces, infinitely stronger than I am and stranger still. A game that was started long before I got here and the rules, for someone as limited as I am, impossible to imagine let alone understand.

That I am significantly limited in every way possible and in need of help to exist at all is the mindset of someone who is God-oriented. Of course, people of old knew this so well and that was the springboard of religion.

The Bible is God’s own account of men and women with these two orientations. From the very beginning, God presented himself to humans as one to be trusted and followed for guidance and for their flourishing.

But Eve chose to flourish apart from God. Think for a moment, Eve’s temptation was not to choose between God and the devil, but rather, between God and self: her vision of the good life.

From that moment, humans by themselves lost the capacity to choose for any other reason but the self, and God’s invitation has always been for humans to choose him rather than themselves. Jesus said continually that he came not to do his will but the will of the Father. This is mission; this is purpose!

Think about it, human nature needs no improvement but crucifixion. God does not empower us for his work, he wants to do his work through us. The only thing that can please God; the only work acceptable to him must be done by God himself. The Spirit gives gifts as he pleases and our calling is to follow him as he does his work.

Let me conclude with Saul and David:

When we first meet David, we see a lad with something experienced men will call “childish” confidence, but it was coming from a God-oriented disposition. There was no hint of fear or doubt at all in Davids’s demeanor. This orientation was the basis on which he challenged Goliath.

However, when we first meet Saul, we see a very shy and seemingly humble young man who ran and hid so that he would not be chosen as God’s anointed. But his humility sprang from his estimation of himself, not on God. By his own estimation of himself, he could not be Israel’s king.

As his successes and popularity grew, however, so also did his self-confidence. Despite the fact that God was the one who gave him success, he came to a point he did not think he needed to rely on God’s directions. His shyness and humility disappeared as his self-confidence grew.

David did know and loved God. That he knew God was the secret of his success. Because he knew God, David knew there was no success apart from God, so he “enquired of the Lord.” He knew that only one thing could succeed: what God says he would do.

Yes, David became strong too, yet he never forgot the source of his strength. He would rather plead with God to change his mind than venture against God’s word.

What does it mean for me that God is my purpose and calling? It means that in knowing him, in pursuing him with all my heart, I will be in the right place at the right time, doing the right things as determined by him, not by my abilities, preferences, or opportunities! Then and only then will I become a woman of purpose.

To live of Thee–blest source of deepest joy! To hear e’en now by faith Thy voice of love–Thou living spring of bliss without alloy, Bright inlet to the light of heaven above!

Come, fill my soul! Thy light is ever pour, and brings from heaven what thou alone canst give. Yea, bring Thyself, the revelation sure Of heaven’s eternal bliss; in Thee we live…

Thou’st made the Father known; Him have we seen, in Thy blest Person–infinite delight! Yes, it surfices: though we here but glean Some foretaste of His love, till all be light.

John Nelson Darby

THANKFUL FOR A GREAT YEAR!!

Gratitude looks to the Past and love to the Present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.

C. S. Lewis, The Screw Tape Letters, #15

What a year!!! Yet I almost spent it without reflecting upon the fact that it’s been an unprecedentedly remarkable year for my family and me! For a great many friends too. It’s been an incredible year indeed. It took going through my photos for the year (the “highlights”) for it to click.

A few Sundays ago, I picked up my phone and saw that Apple Photos had created a new memory album for me from my photos titled “The year (2022) in review.” I was astonished at the things that have happened this year.

There have been unusual answers to prayers. Unusual in the sense that almost every specific prayer was answered in very tangible ways. In truth, God went beyond my wildest imagination to grant even things I did not specifically ask for.

The ability to pray alone for me was an endowment of grace. Prayer has always been a struggle, but this year proved different. I enjoyed a great time of prayer knowing fully well that it was the Lord who was at work in me both to will it and to actually pray.

My faith was also stretched in very remarkable ways. Yes, God had set open doors before me, but I needed faith to walk into those doors. It proved to be more difficult than I would’ve thought, especially as it entailed taking great risks in hope that it really was God and that he would keep his word.

To not have acted at all would’ve not only been the greatest display of unbelief, but it would also’ve robbed me of the opportunity to “taste and see that the Lord is good.” I’m glad I did not fail the test in spite of the sweat.

However, the fact that I had forgotten that most of these things happened was more shocking and revealing. I am persuaded that, as a Christian, I’m not naturally an ingrate, but in my forgetfulness, I become one, every so often.

Ingratitude comes, as C. S. Lewis describes it in the thoughts of the demon Screwtape, when we become preoccupied with the future rather than reflecting on the past and attending to the present:

We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.

The Screwtape Letters #15

In my opinion, of all human vices, ingratitude is chief. Ingratitude is the intangible, invisible bearer of arrogance, pride, and self-sufficiency; a total lack of the feeling of indebtedness to another. Ingratitude denies the contributions of others in one’s better fortunes. It denies, in fact, the role of providence.

A more subtle cause of ingratitude is a preoccupation with the prayers that are still unanswered. My prayers for Nigeria, for example, have seemed unanswered for so long that any pleasure at present seems unfair. But even for Nigeria, this year has brought with it reasons to be hopeful and thus to be thankful.

Some details of one’s walk with God are better left unsaid, and I am not about to recite mine. Yet our testimonies are important for the glory of God and the shame of the devil, who works tirelessly to discourage us by making us focus on unfulfilled dreams and a sense of uncertainty about the future:

And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony…

Revelation 12:11a

Ingratitude is not so much in what we do or don’t do. It is an attitude, a state of mind. One can very easily be unconscious of God’s sovereign rule and the roles of others in one’s life. That is the very nature of ingratitude.

Gratitude, on the other hand, takes into account what God and others have done to bring us to a place of blessedness. It enables us to stop and count our blessings one by one. Only then can we take pleasure in what the Lord has done.

Screwtape believes that eternity is in the past; that only when we reflect on the past and all that has gone before are we better able to see eternity in light of God’s consistencies. While that is true, thinking of the future falls also within eternity. We are “beings in time” (Martin Heidegger).

I believe that part of being human means being aware of oneself as related to the past and future (Paul Recœur); we can’t help thinking about how the present bears upon the future to the extent that, sometimes, the past and the present are nothing at all but currencies for the future.

What makes this very sad is that “future” is metaphorical, the root word “futūrus” is a Latin word which means “about to be.” Future has no existence in itself. We never step into the “future,” we only step into another present which soon becomes a past. The future we hope for never comes as the future.

I look forward to the future, to this new year, expecting that He who sustained me in 2022 will continue the good work he’s started in me and will bring it to completion in the Day of Christ: that’s the only True Future!

Bless the Lord, my soul,
And do not forget any of His benefits;
Who pardons all your guilt,
Who heals all your diseases;
Who redeems your life from the pit,
Who crowns you with favor and compassion;
Who satisfies your [a]years with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle.

Psalm 103:2-5

Merry Christmas: My Most Feverish Time of Year!🎄

So Death lay in arrest. But at Bethlehem the bless’d/Nothing greater could be heard/Than sighing wind in the thorn, the cry of One new-born/And cattle in stable as they stirred?

The Turn of the Tide by C. S. Lewis

Had it not been for a provocative invitation from a friend to watch a talk by Adrian Umpleby, a mathematician/astronomer, on the possible nature of the famous Christmas star, I would’ve written nothing.

Yet, as with every year, I have lived with a feverish desire since the turn of winter, a desire to unravel the mystery of the incarnation; why it happened the way that it happened.

I am consumed by the extraordinariness of this miracle, the single, most important event upon which humanity’s future hung, and yet, which came to us in the most ordinary way; through the lowliest people and events.

The story of the nativity carries with it a great wonder veiled to ordinary human eyes even when the entire universe teemed with it. It seemed there was an attempt to hide this mystery by making sure that the people involved were so unimpressive they could not attract attention.

What with a poor teenage girl without social status, becoming pregnant by who knows who, and being led by a meek man, so meek one would pass him for an imbecile for agreeing to still take her as his wife.

The journey to Bethlehem was also very ordinary. They were not transported by angelic wings or teleported like Phillip. Took them as many days as it would take the poor, and the same dangers everyday travelers would’ve been exposed to.

There was nothing in them to attract an adventurer or a pilgrim. No wonder they were ignored by the innkeeper. How could it be possible that Mary was carrying in her virgin womb the singular seed of God’s salvific mission and still be in such an abominable condition? How extraordinary in its ordinariness, how debase!

Talking about base. Whoever the so-called magi from the east were, we know that they were hardly Jews. They were of a strange religion (magicians or scientists—makes little difference), engaged in some form of divination that involved reading the stars. But they read the mystery star correctly!

The royal birth announcement was carried out by angels, yes, but the proclamation was to a bunch of nobodies: shepherds! A host of angels, not singing in the king’s palace or in the temple court or inner sanctuary, but to shepherds in a field by night.

My favorite Christmas stories are the Magi’s visit to Bethlehem, following a mysterious star (Matthew 2), and the shepherds’ encounter with an angelic host (Luke 2); the very ordinary and the extraordinary in a mystical play.

These stories have in them a common element: the collusion of the terrestrial and the celestial in a joint event that changed history. The mystical, miraculous, and yet ordinary elements of these stories captivate me. Oh, the grace and wonder of it!

It would mean nothing to me, of course, if I did not believe that it was true. That the earth is only a tiny bit of a humongous universe in the bidding of God. I look up at the sky many times, believing that if only I can look more intently and long enough, I may catch an activity. I live in constant expectation of the supernatural to rare its head.

As it happened, this year 2022 has been astronomically remarkable with some discoveries in Quantum Physics that seem to delve more and more into mysterious space and the elements involved in the existence of the universe. And I wonder, is astronomy and quantum physics on the verge of conversion?

The trouble with tradition is that it tends to lose not only its original meaning but also its sense of wonder. Being somewhat of a believer in tradition myself, I try not to lose either meaning or the wonder it provokes. There’s meaning in tradition; there’s meaning in Christmas!

The timing for the talk I was invited to watch didn’t work out for me so I missed it, but at least it fueled my sense of wonder and provoked a new reflection on the wonders that makes this season my most feverish time of the year.

Merry Christmas and Happy wondering!

Happy Birthday, Anya: We Named You A Mark!

Dear Anya,

Another year has come around and you would’ve been 7. Try as I may, I couldn’t help but write again. Here’s how this unfortunate event has continued to unfold/impact me.

With every year that passes, I see gleams of purpose in your death. Though I still argue that there must surely be other ways God could bring about whatever purpose is being fulfilled now, I am beginning to wonder that perhaps there are none.

In just the same way one may wonder why Jesus had to die. I have wondered before why God didn’t save the world any other way. This is a mystery beyond mortal comprehension and thus a dumb question to ask.

I don’t mean to say your life was cut short so we can learn a thing or two, but that you came into this world for a purpose, and that purpose includes your death at the time you died. First, let me begin with your name and how the coincidence dawned on me:

Anya. The root word from which the name was gotten is “inya,” an Izere word for a “mark.” Of course, that wasn’t why we named you so. We named you Anya after a beloved cousin who died of heart disease at 18. So young.

That also was my paternal grandmother’s name, and your father’s paternal grandmother’s name as well; your two great-grandmas. Anya. The name reminded us of a few loved ones who had died. You embodied them in a remote sense.

Little did we know the name was fitting, given your brief life. You were Anya, the Mark. You came to make a mark, not to stay. Yours wasn’t a life to be lived in full. You came to make an impact and to be gone.

The first mark was with the knife that cut through my lower abdomen that late winter afternoon when you were born of a C-section. The second knife was invisible; it worked on me the morning you died, cutting my heart in shreds and for no purpose, it seemed.

Between these two knife marks (4 years and 4 months apart) is a rich impact that cannot be erased, a permanent mark that continues to ripple. Your birth brought joy and laughter to our family. We still talk about you and watch funny videos of you. We are as united by your death as we were by your birth; united by joy and by grief.

Your death also forced me to dare things I would not ordinarily dare; to stumble into realities that would have forever been closed to me. Your spirit beckoned me into the valley of the shadow of death, inviting me into a much broader understanding of reality than anything else in this life could show me.

Quite recently I was sitting beside a woman who had just got the news that her husband was dead. I was summoned to sit with her. She turned and looked at me and said, “I am fine and have no need of you, you may go now.” She couldn’t fool me, you see.

There is a level at which I am able to interact with grieving people now that I had no other ways of reaching, except, of course, for my own grief. It is a “fellowship” of some sort. As a pastor’s wife, I had comforted many in their griefs, but now I can only “grieve with;” I have no other comfort to give than that.

I was neither angry nor sad at the woman’s comment. I couldn’t take it personally. The Esther that I was before you died would have taken it quite personally and would have left, feeling rejected. But I knew that this woman wasn’t rejecting me; she was in denial of some sort, telling herself that she needed no sympathy. I stayed.

I had merely stumbled into this ability to empathize if indeed one can call it an ability; it happened quite by accident and I take no credit for it. This has nothing to do with righteousness or technical expertise but a discovery from a given experience. In this too, Anya, you have left a mark.

I understand the kind of despair that defies wishes and hopes, panting despair, the bottom of hopelessness when you know that nothing could change the outcome that’s causing your torment; whimpering desperation that yearns in vain for relief. All it does is wallow in its own wretchedness.

But this is not the end of the story. Quite the contrary. I am able to enter into another’s pain and cry out to the God who chose to know despair for our sake. I am far from perfect, my child, and nothing has revealed that to me than your death. I have been born anew by pain. This too is a permanent mark you have left.

I know despair and I am thankful. I have learned to endure those who despise my suffering, who attack my pain for no other reason than to feel better about themselves. I was that way too. This is all from ignorance and I forgive willingly. I will never wish my pain on my worst enemy.

With Anya Hana-Rose Foundation, you continue to make a mark; little marks but mighty in their impact. You are touching lives. Already, you are shaping destinies, making some dreams come true. Only God knows the extent of the impact this will make.

God always brings beauty out of ashes for his children. He alone can heal any wound he has wound and by his grace I shall continue, year by year, to recount how he’s been faithful in that.

For he wounds, but he binds up;
    he shatters, but his hands heal.
He will deliver you from six troubles;
    in seven no evil shall touch you.

Job 5:18-19

Your name is “a Mark!” ✍️

MIDDLE-WORLD AND FREE

I am middle-world.

I’m a point of convergence between worlds.

There is a world inside me as there’s one without,

Real and tangible as the one without.

A sure ground, a foothold, a fortress for my soul.

Its walls a bulwark of faith, a safe haven; protected.

Its treasures are gold of everlasting insight,

A gift from my beloved whose life I live.

I chose to dwell in the world within

I lose without only when I have lost within.

I live without only as I live within.

There are worlds above and others down below,

Yet no world has a hold on me.

I am middle-world and free!

Maybe You Are Not Angry Enough: What Jesus can Teach Us About the Emotion of Anger

“Did Jesus have anger issues?” was the question that came to me the first time I watched the 2003 visual Bible titled, The Gospel of John. This movie reveals in a fascinating way the depth of emotion Jesus exhibited many times as captured by the most philosophical, what-Jesus-is-about disciple: John.

https://a.co/dhttps://a.co/d/5i9tOPZ/5i9tOPZ

Being lately tormented by the fact that I was unable to curb my anger over an issue, I found myself, quite unexpectedly, reflecting on the impact this movie had on me many years ago. Then I thought it shocking and impossible that Jesus would speak with such passion.

I am essentially emotional in the ways I relate to the world around me and I have always thought that to be wrong. Not only has this disposition made me suffer pain that could be avoided if I didn’t feel so much, but it has also caused much pain to people I care about. Conversely, though, I write best when I feel very strongly about the subject.

The culture wars on social media and the rage that accompanies them bear witness to the dangers of strongly felt opinions or, in fact, beliefs. Ancient stoic wisdom and more recently, psychology, tell us that emotional tranquility is a sign of a balanced, mature life. It has been a mark of both elegance and civility among the enlightened.

However, the problem is not only a matter of secular thought or Eastern philosophy and spirituality. Many Christians, in the same modern spirit of civility, condemn truth-telling (saying-it-as-it-is) as unkind and unloving. To speak the truth in love means to not be harsh or confrontational in addressing anyone. Fair enough. But what do we do with Scripture? Fierce passion seems to mar the prophets, Christ, and the apostles.

This reminds me of someone’s quip to a church recently about how our modern expectations are hardly in tandem with the ways of Christ. “If Jesus were your pastor,” he said, “I bet you would’ve fired him a long time ago.” Jesus was never in a hurry about anything, cared nothing about popularity, and said his mind when the occasion called for it. Yes, Jesus was God and had nothing but goodness in him, yet he wasn’t your usual “nice” guy.

 Maturity, I was always told, is being able to set aside emotions and speak or act rationally. Rationality then is often viewed as antonymous to emotionality. So, for me, it has been an area of perceived weakness that I needed to “work on” or pray away, thus the shocking effect of the movie The Gospel of John.

I decided that Henry Cusick, the guy who acted as Jesus of Nazareth, probably overdid his part. But the more I listened to or read the words of Jesus as reported in the gospel of John and the other gospels, the more it became clear that Jesus’s expressions were, in truth, ladened with emotion. There was no way those words could have been spoken otherwise. Take for an example:

But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

Matthew 23:14-15

How nicely could Jesus have said that?

But wait, this is not me trying to defend or justify my emotionality. As I pray for more patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control (for a tamed personality, basically), certain thoughts and insights, quite unexpectedly, began to emerge from my reflections and prayers. Something will need to change in me for sure, but not my ability to feel strongly, especially not my emotion of anger.

Like sex, emotions are God-given and good. It is an essential part of being human. In fact, hate and anger, in particular, relate to love; we hate whatever threatens what we love. However, emotionality has suffered belittlement due to either misuse or abuse and sometimes both. To be emotional is seen as childish or uncivil, but emotional tranquility is worse, I dare say; it is inhuman. Here’s what I am learning lately.

Jesus’ emotions (of course, not excluding his rationality; the two are not quite as separated as we often think) were at the forefront of most of his actions. Whenever he performed a miracle, he was usually moved by compassion, grief, or anger. Once, while his disciples looked admiringly at the fashionable buildings of Jerusalem, especially the elegant temple, Jesus’ response was an overwhelming emotion of sadness; he wept over the city.

We read that he was so angry at the people buying and selling in the temple court that he lashed out and overthrew their tables. He was angry at a fig tree for its deceptive appearance and cursed it. If we could change some stories about Jesus to make him more of the gentleman we wish to make him, we would!

Thanks to a modern portrayal of Jesus as meek and mild, the eucharistic lamb-of-God Jesus, who lifts his hands only to bless and opens his mouth only to comfort and encourage, we overlook some of these instances where Jesus “criticized” and “rebuked” harshly, the lion-of-Judah Jesus. He was uncompromising in his convictions about which he felt deeply.

Perhaps in the same manner that we often claim that the living God, with whom we have a living relationship, doesn’t speak to us subjectively and directly (as is natural in any meaningful relationship), but, like a dead man who lives behind his thoughts in a will or letters he had written, he speaks to us only through his written word, the Bible. The irony doesn’t even strike us. Someone captures this unreality in a song lately:

Though I know your word, I don’t know your voice…

We often try to make Christianity more acceptable by adapting it to contemporary intellectual claims or secular wisdom. We sieve out conceptually what Jesus should be according to our idea of the gospel of peace. The rest? we throw them out as irrelevant for our times.

The quest for a historical Jesus rightly sets out to find, not the cleaned-up idealistic Jesus, but the one who actually existed, the God/man. In his book, Jesus, Inspiring and Disturbing Presence, M. de Jonge rightly caution that any portrayal of Jesus, either dogmatic or historical, can only become meaningful in a personal encounter (faith).

Indeed, I can understand who Jesus was through the historical accounts of his words and actions, but only as one who believes in his divinity and humanity; also in the validity of the accounts of his life as attested to by these eyewitnesses.

In this way, rather than a notion of what Jesus must be based on some contemporary interpretation of the good life, or even from an analysis of sources outside the Bible about the culture of his time, his words and actions come to me as living and active proclamation of the will of God.

Now, could it be possible that John chose to report only the most dramatic of Jesus’s speeches? Highly unlikely. Drama is clearly not what John targets in his writing. John wrote to bear witness to who Jesus was as God/man and what he was about. The core of his message and assignment on earth is the emphasis.

If this is so, then John chose to report the things that revealed Jesus’ nature as God/man and what seemed most important to him in his interactions with people. These interactions were carried out as God in human flesh, which would explain why Jesus’ expressions were full of feelings. As humans, emotions reveal how much we care. Jesus cared about something and it spilled out. He does not veil it in niceness.

What Then Can We Learn From Jesus?

  • Jesus’ anger consisted in protecting divine values or principles, rather than in settling personal differences. His was not self-righteous anger; “self” and “righteous” were one thing in him. He was “the way, the truth, and the life,” for which reason he declared, “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.” (John 6:38).

We see this principle in operation not only in Jesus but also in the prophets before him and the disciples after him. They proclaimed the mind of the Father with intense feelings. The prophets, in particular, were seen as angry and anti-social, lacking a positive outlook on life. They were consumed by their message.

Though the disciples endured personal opposition and persecution, they exhibited passion in their message and occasionally, anger against those who not only opposed the truth but tried to stop others from hearing it. For example, Peter, against Simon the sorcerer in Acts 9, and Paul, against the slave girl who followed him and Silas, shouting and distracting them (Acts 16).

  • Jesus had emotional triggers. He was not some angry personality who walked around shouting at people and condemning everyone he came across. Surprisingly, he seemed quite at peace around prostitutes, tax collectors, and sinners. He taught them about the kingdom of heaven sometimes with great humor.

Jesus attended sinners’ parties and ate with them. Lepers and the diseased evoked not irritation but compassion from him. The Pharisees and teachers of the law, on the other hand, were his nemesis. Even then he didn’t just go off at them. He had friends amongst them.

Jesus went to the homes of Pharisees and ate with them. But he never shied away from calling out their hypocrisies and misrepresentation of God’s truth, sometimes intercepting their thoughts. He would not hesitate to correct them but was especially ticked off by their arrogance and lack of compassion. He sometimes expresses his anger in strong terms as: “ you brood of vipers!”

A very common anger trigger for Jesus is when God’s truth is under attack. He was about his father’s business and would protect the truth at all costs. After all, he is the Truth. Once he turned and rebuked Peter rather sharply when what Peter suggested was clearly against the father’s will.

Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.

Matthew 16:23b

The bottom line is that anger, in and of itself, is not wrong; it is what triggers it that is usually the problem. Indeed, we are not Jesus in whom there was no selfishness. But we can learn to imitate his love for God; actually, his Holy Spirit produces that in us so that we are angry at the right things. When we can’t feel anger or are unable to respond to it, then it means we have become flawed. We cannot love.

The one who loves is automatically angered by anything that threatens the object of love. When we love God enough, our anger is taken care of. Shamefully, most times I am not angry when God is dishonored as I am when my personal honor is at stake.