It’s been a soul crushing week, for so many. Gut wrenching. Rage inducing. Grief flooding.
We’ve watched in horror as children were executed in a Texas elementary school…..Unimaginable terror and grief. How could this happen? A school should be SAFE. A classroom should be a place to learn and grown, not to cower under desks in terror. Students should be playing on the playground, returning books to the library, learning multiplication tables, making friends…instead, I wonder, how many of the children who have survived are experiencing nightmares? Fear at the thought of returning to school some day? How many parents are shaking with rage, grief, loss, fear?
In the Southern Baptist Convention, we’ve waded through a 288 page report detailing the findings of a Sexual Abuse Task Force’s investigation into the convention’s Executive Committee’s (and thereby, I would say the convention at large) handling of a far-ranging sexual abuse crises bubbling in Southern Baptist Churches….for years. At least for 45 years, I can say with certainty. Maybe longer.
Maybe longer.
A church should be SAFE. A church should be a place to learn about who God is – a place to learn about Daniel in the Lion’s Den; or David slaying Goliath. Or Jesus and the miracle of the loaves and fishes. It should be Sunday School and goldfish crackers and Jesus Loves Me. Vacation Bible School, and Awana, and Children’s Choir. It should not be a place of danger. A place of trying to hide, trying to avoid being singled out. Of being ‘special’ and not in a good way. Church should be a place where the tender little sparks of faith are natured and fed oxygen to grow, rather than snuffed out into dark coals, leaving nothing but doubt. And nightmares.
It’s been a tough, tough week. For so many. For so, so many.
My life personally – and then again, unimaginably as if lightning could strike twice, the life of my family – has been rocked by the sexual abuse evil within the church. There is much I could write about that – much I have written previously, the hardest words shared with a tiny few who God ordained to step into my pain and walk beside me as I fought through doubt and despair and deep shame and anger and skepticism and the deepest grief imaginable to one day be able to cry out to God, much like Peter – “I believe; Help my unbelief!” There are words I’ve written on this blog – words for a wider audience; detailing what God has done and who He is. There are words I’ve written very publicly, in forums such as ERLC, the UK’s Caring Journal, and SEBTS Faith Forum.
And there are words I’ve written that are only for my God. Words of deepest lament an sorrow, with an understanding that my God can handle such words…not only can He handle them, but He invites me…and you, dear reader…to bring Him the deepest aches and darkest places of your soul. We see evidence of this throughout Psalms, as we ‘peer over’ the Psalmists’ shoulders and read the very depths of their cries to our God.
As we walk into a new week, though, tonight I find myself needing to write different words…words that sternly preach to my heart and to my mind. Words that prop me up for the week ahead…words that remind me exactly what God has done, and exactly who God is.
I do so by turning to a form of scripture work that has, time and time again, saved me. I don’t mean necessarily a saving faith – salvation – though to some degree, I do believe this type of work does play a part (Philippians 1:6; 2:12). Rather, I am referring to the saving of my soul and mind from the dark tunnel I can find myself in, when the night is long and the nightmares are strong and when the world seems so upside down as it has this past week.
I’m hopeful that by sharing this type of scripture work with you, dear reader, that you will be encouraged – that you will see how important it is to preach truth to ourselves. This is work I wrote yesterday, and it is based in Psalm 66. I’m not including the entirety of the work I’ve done on this chapter – it’s terribly lengthy. But here is a very raw and honest sample, friends. I’m truly grateful I learned…I was taught…this way of interacting with God’s word. without it, I am afraid that despair would have buried me, too many times to count.
Shout for joy to God, all the earth;
2 sing the glory of his name;
give to him glorious praise!
Oh God – my soul does not feel joyful today. I know there is much to be joyful about – I know this to be truth. But I do not have a song to sing today. I look at the world – the events of this past week – and I cringe. I cry. I awake in fear. Tomorrow is Sunday – worship. Church. We will sing “Tis so Sweet to Trust in Jesus.”….God, I am struggling to trust You right now. I am. I am. Please awaken my soul….breathe onto the cold coals of my heart so that I can sing “I’m so glad I learned to trust Him, Precious Jesus, Savior, Friend….and I know that thou are with me, will be with me to the end.”
3 Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds!
So great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you.
Today, in this place, in this world, this is hard to picture God. It’s hard to picture that your enemies – come cringing to you. In that 288 report God, I read of wolves disguised as sheep. I’ve known wolves disguised as sheep – ready to devour. Enemies of you, who prey on the most vulnerable. I want to see your great power – I want to see justice roll.
8 Bless our God, O peoples;
let the sound of his praise be heard,
9 who has kept our soul among the living
and has not let our feet slip.
Bless you God – You who have truly, without a shadow of a doubt, kept my soul among the living. Not a figure of speech – but truth. You have kept my soul among the living. You have kept my soul among the living, and today my life is filled with gifts only you could give. I see it in the eyes of my crew – in the laughter that rings through this house. I see it in the gift of being able to sit with others in their deepest pain – that privilege is a sacred entrusted gift through which I learn even more about who you are. You have kept my soul among the living. And you have replaced my heart of stone with a heart of flesh.
Let not my feet slip, O God, in these days – you have helped my feet find solid ground so many times before, and you are faithful and merciful – you will do so again. Help my feet to stand fast.
10 For you, O God, have tested us;
you have tried us as silver is tried.
11 You brought us into the net;
you laid a crushing burden on our backs;
12 you let men ride over our heads;
we went through fire and through water;
yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.
Your ways are not our ways God. There are things I will never understand. Never. The murder of children in a school room. Sexual Abuse. Sexual Abuse within the church. I will always struggle with theodicy – with why evil exists. Always. I don’t think verses 10-12 are stating you are the author of evil – that is not within your character. I know this. I know this to be truth. But I also know what I read in the book of Job. He was crushed, God. Crushed. CRUSHED. At your permission. I will never understand this.
But.
What I do understand is that you do not turn away from us, when we are crushed. Even though it may seem as if you are silent. Absent. As if we can’t feel your presence. You do not turn away from us in those crushing moments. You are not far from the brokenhearted. So many times I return to Acts 17 – and I feel my way back to you, because you are not far off. Or I turn to Exodus 2:25 – You see. You know. You KNOW.
And you will bring us out. To a place of abundance…though that place may not look like we want it to, in our sinful view of life. It may look completely different. And, it may not be realized until we are before your throng – until we stop seeing as through a glass darkly, but rather we see you face-to-face. You will bring us to a place of abundance. You have done so in my own life. You have – more than I could ever fathom.
16 Come and hear, all you who fear God,
and I will tell what he has done for my soul.
Come and hear, my friends – come and hear what God has done for my soul! Come and hear – He has done great things! Come and hear, my own self – recount what God has done. He has rescued me. He has pulled me from the depths. He has helped my unbelief – He has given me the faith I could not, in any way shape or form, manufacture on my own. He has seen me. He knows my name. He knows the indescribable pain and terror. He knows the grief. He has provided for me, for my family. He has built a beautiful family out of ashes. O, my soul, listen to what He has done for you! Count the ways your God has delivered you….
19 But truly God has listened;
he has attended to the voice of my prayer.
20 Blessed be God,
because he has not rejected my prayer
or removed his steadfast love from me!
Thank you God, for listening – but what strikes me here in verse 19 is the words “attended to the voice of my prayer” – that’s so much more than just listening. You have attended to the voice of my prayer – that is action. You, O God, have heard my cries, my pleading, my prayers even when they have been nothing more than groans. You, O God – have attended to the voice of my prayer as a father attends a child who is in need. And just like a father would not…should not…reject a child, neither have you rejected my prayer. My prayers. My many prayers. Your answers may be beyond my understanding so many times, but the beautiful, awe-striking, so hard to fathom truth is that You have not rejected my prayer…or, even more so, rejected me.
Your steadfast love is all my hope. It is my only hope. Thank you for loving me. Please never remove your love – please help me to sense that love in the hardest of days. You are my only hope. You are this world’s only hope. You are those grieving parents and terrified children’s only hope. You are the only hope for those who have been harmed within the church in the most vile of way. You are this world’s only hope.
You are my only hope.
