Category: battle wounds

Dancing With Bruises

Dancers are some of the most talented people I know. Their gracefulness is truly amazing. But a dancer’s training is far from easy. By choosing to become dancers they have made a decision to absorb the pain of the dance.

Their toes and feet are blistered and bruised–they take constant abuse. Some live with chronic tendonitis, and their feet bleed sometimes, pain is their constant companion, but you know what? They still choose to dance. It’s what they were born to do.

Two things to consider.

  • They choose to dance. Dancers must operate with an iron will and an elegant grace. I suppose that is why they can dance the way they do. They have painfully blended the two. We see the elegance, but don’t see the pain.
  • The scars and bruises often become “badges of honor.” They would rather dance in pain, than not dance at all.

I once heard a therapist describe depression as having a “mental bruise.” I think I understand this. 

As one prone to depression, I know what it is like to bury myself in my bed for weeks at a time. My own mental bruise was simply more than I could take. There was a sensation of sinking into blackness, a sense of total and complete despair. I felt lost and completely alone.

I prayed. I groaned, and I prayed again, and again.

My sense of being totally lost in sad, dark thoughts was beyond comprehension. Dear reader, this was something quite real, and you must become aware of these things. About 20% of people are diagnosed with depression sometime in their life.

Maybe some of your friends are suffering this way? It’s often hidden by a fake smile, but it’s there and you don’t even know it.

We would never say that diabetics are that way because of the enemy. The dark one will surely exploit it, but I think you give him far too much credit if you suggest he was able to initiate it. I don’t think Satan has the spiritual “voltage.” He often uses depression to “set his hooks” in a person.

I refuse to hide my mental bruises from those who share my pain. I will make the choice to dance. I’m bruised, but I will try to ignore the pain. God meets me with an extra helping of His grace and mercy. I want to exult in God, walk in His love, and “leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture.” (Malachi 4:2.)

“A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he has brought justice through to victory.”

Isaiah 42:3

The great pastor/evangelist Charles Spurgeon once spoke about his own personal battle with depression:

 “I find myself frequently depressed – perhaps more so than any other person here. And I find no better cure for that depression than to trust in the Lord with all my heart, and seek to realize afresh the power of the peace-speaking blood of Jesus, and His infinite love in dying upon the cross to put away all my transgressions.”

Meet My Friend, Pain

I’ve gone through many awful things—stuff that should have destroyed me. Things so bitter and hard it’s a wonder that I’ve even survived. I’m not overstating and not melodramatic. I know that I’m still standing because of grace and mercy that God has given. 

The other day I stepped into a gym where a Church potluck was happening. Now I’ve been in constant pain for several months and it’s been terribly hard. Standing and waiting on the line to get shorter, I distinctly heard something that seemed to come out of the blue. 

“Pain is now your friend.” 

That thought definitely did NOT originate from me. Initially, it was absurd. Bizarre. I stood in that crowd, rocked by that idea, “pain is now your friend.” I can’t explain it, nor can I diminish it. Obviously, the idea was not conjured up or produced by my conjecture or reasoning. It is exactly what it is. 

A day later I came across this thought. 

“I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the rock of ages.” 

C.H. Spurgeon 

Can I kiss that wave? Can I discount all the difficulties that pain has caused in my life? Now I admit I had been praying quite earnestly for God to take me. That may be a shock to some, I know. But I’ve had enough of this misery. Enough! Bring me home. I’m so tired of this. 

What crushed me did not crush God’s purposes for me. 

Much could be said about this, but what could not destroy me needs to make me aware. I have been given a “hard” gift. I have endured much hurt. And even now, as I typed out this post, I still am in pain. Why? 

There is a definite purpose why. That pain is my friend, my companion. For how long, I do not know. But I do know that I will kiss that wave, for it presses me to my Savior. I cannot explain it, because it’s foolish and counterintuitive. I’m not trying to ignore its presence, nor am I trying to paint “a happy face” on it. 

“During this time now, we have troubles and pain. But I am sure that these troubles are not really very great. One day God will show us all the great things he has prepared for us. That will make the troubles that we have now seem very small.” 

Romans 8:18, RB 

Yes, dear one, pain is one of my best friends. Nothing else could have reached me, I needed some hard “medicine” because I could not understand this any other way. 

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” 

2 Corinthians 1:4, ESV 

I think I now know why.

Some will not understand, that’s ok. I’m glad they don’t.

“Suffering is unbearable if you aren’t certain that God is for you and with you.”

Tim Keller

A Used Heroin Needle

Clarion Alley, 1987

I lived in the inner city of San Francisco from 1986-1989. I was a full-time missionary and lived in community called SOS. There were about 10 believers, and we were committed to doing high visibility evangelism, “taking the Church on the street.” We all lived in an old Victorian in the Mission district. 

I will not minimize the difficulty and danger of the streets combined with our ministry’s approach. Not only was it hard, but we also lived in a hard place. Our neighbors were heroin addicts, and we lived just a couple of doors down from the “largest lesbian rock-roll bar west of the Mississippi.”  

Directly behind our house was an alley that was as bad as you can imagine; addicts and winos had basically taken over. It was full of trash, feces, and urine. And in the hot summer it would make your eyes water. It really was awful. 

Please keep reading. 

One hot summer day I decided to clean up part of our alley. Armed with an old broom, laundry detergent, a hose (and courage) I headed out to scrub away. It took some doing; it was somewhat nauseating. 

I noticed a small hole in the corner of the wall. I reached in to discover a well-used heroin needle hidden inside. I ran that needle into my hand. 

I really didn’t think much about it at the time. 

About six months later I was in San Francisco General outpatient for AIDS testing. I had been terribly tired and had lost some weight. Perhaps I had been infected? It was funny but a part of all of this was having to sit in a circle with a dozen gay men being instructed about safe sex practices. (I remember bananas and condoms were used.) 

It was 1987, and AIDS testing was still primitive; it took 6 weeks for the results. 

That wait was a bit of a challenge. I cried out to the Lord many times. Since the symptoms got even worse, I started to think the worse. I was thinking, “was this considered martyrdom?” or “I can’t ask Lynn to marry me now.” (I had been thinking about this up to then.) 

I was positive that I had AIDS. 

About 20 years later I discovered I had contracted HCV, Hepatitis C. I had a good doctor who knew his stuff. Although my liver had been damaged by that point, he guided me through a maze of testing and found a new med that was supposed to have good results. It did, thank God. I had finally been cured. 

Lynnie and I were married on January 7, 1989. 

What can I say really? I know the Lord directly intervened. We returned to Alaska where I was asked to teach at the Alaska Bible Institute. I was able to draw on my many experiences with SOS in San Francisco to touch the hearts of young men and women going into ministry. 

Lynnie and I went on to pastor a Church in 2000. 

Only God can bring good out of something bad. 

“O Lord my God, I cried to You for help, and You have healed me.” 

Psalm 30:2 

“Christ is the Good Physician. There is no disease He cannot heal; no sin He cannot remove; no trouble He cannot help. He is the Balm of Gilead, the Great Physician who has never yet failed to heal all the spiritual maladies of every soul that has come unto Him in faith and prayer.” 

 James H. Aughey 

For info about SOS Ministries–sosmin.com

The Awful Pain of Job

job-and-his-friends

“Oh, why give light to those in misery,
    and life to those who are bitter?
21 They long for death, and it won’t come.
    They search for death more eagerly than for hidden treasure.22 They’re filled with joy when they finally die, and rejoice when they find the grave.
23 Why is life given to those with no future,
    those God has surrounded with difficulties?”

Job 3:20-23, NLT

Job begins to curse his very existence. Life has become far too brutal. He has lost everything. At this point Job is completely undone.

There is an endless grief that even his tears can’t help.

In Job’s first speech he asks some basic questions:

  • Why is light given to those who are full of pain?
  • Why does life unfold to the one who rather not live anymore?

There is a powerful wish or desire in this three verses. He wants to die, and end the charade. He wishes for non-existence and laments that he can not die fast enough. His terrible pain has taken his life.

People with disabilities and chronic pain can understand Job’s welcome craving for any sort of release. Once they were “whole” people. Death was something to be avoided at all costs. But now it is seen as an escape.

Job simply wants out.

Hurting people will often turn to drinking and drugging as a way of coping. We’ll try anything to numb our thinking. It’s what gets us through the day. We are bitter, and we are lost.

For Job (the patron saint of pain) finds that nothing will fix him. His friends have come, but they seem to only accuse and confuse job. Honestly he is better when they just sat with him in silence. If you read the book of Job you will understand.

“God wants us to choose to love him freely, even when that choice involves pain, because we are committed to him, not to our own good feelings and rewards. He wants us to cleave to him, as Job did, even when we have every reason to deny him hotly.”

–Philip Yancey

“Come quickly, Lord, and answer me, for my depression deepens. Don’t turn away from me, or I will die. Let me hear of your unfailing love each morning, for I am trusting you. Show me where to walk, for I give myself to you.”

Psalm 143:7-8

 

ybic, Bryan