Good Pain

When I was pregnant with my babies, the midwives tried to prepare me for the labour. In prenatal class, they told us fledgling, soon-to-be mums that there was such a thing as good pain. Pain that was healthy and meaningful. Pain that produced results: the whole body working together to bring your child from your womb and into your arms. My twenty-something year old brain rejected the concept. Good pain? I thought incredulously. Who are you kidding? Pain is pain and I don't want a bar of it.

I epi-duraled my way through two labours. Ah, the bliss of liquid numbness, seeping through my spine and filling my body with blessed relief from contractions that rolled like merciless waves over my tired body. Why would anyone do it any other way? I thought.

Fast forward a few years.
I have come to realise exactly what the midwives were talking about.
We might be able to skip the pain of labour, thanks to some pretty magical medications, but sooner or later, life is going to present us with a situation that there is no easy way out of.
While my epidural took away my labour pain, I did miss an opportunity to develop confidence in my own endurance. Now, that being said, there is absolutely no shame in choosing medication for labour and I do not take any moral stance against it. What I am saying, is that for me, the choice echoed similar choices I had made over the years; which was, when things got hard, I lost my nerve. I simply believed I could not do anything that hurt or challenged me.

A lifetime of avoiding scary things, difficult things, painful things, resulted in me struggling in my confidence as an adult and feeling powerless in my world.

A few years ago, I was about twenty kilos overweight. I lamented my pre-motherhood figure. I envied mothers who 'bounced right back' after labour, squeezing into their tiny jeans with their flat tummies. Finally, after five years, I realised, I wasn't going to get my figure back by complaining about it. I was gonna have to work for it.

Enter the concept of good pain, once more.
Ah, the good pain of a tummy that craved chocolate and fast food. The soreness of muscles that were learning to jog. The feeling of frustration when the weight didn't peel off. Was all this effort actually achieving something?
My give-up nature poked and cajoled me at every turn.

There is a point in our challenge where our work does not seem to be accomplishing anything. In weight loss, it is the point where you are exercising and moderating your food choices but you're still in the same dress size. In labour, it is the point where you've been huffing and puffing through contractions only to be told that you are barely dilated.

This is the painful ground; the point where hard work and it's sweet rewards have not yet married, and Lord, it's tempting to give up. But you mustn't! You must tenaciously engage your will, knowing that what you are doing will bring a harvest. The midwives had it right. Not all pain is bad. Some pain is proof of your effort, proof of your accomplishment. As in weight training, where the muscles are literally torn and healed to bring strength, so in life, we must experience a little discomfort to bring about great strength and endurance. You can do it, you are doing it, and you will reap a reward.

'And let us not lose heart and grow weary and faint in acting nobly and doing right, for in due time and at the appointed season we shall reap, if we do not loosen and relax our courage and faint.'
Galatians 6:9. (Amplified Bible)

Bad days

They happen to everyone.
Most people shake them off.
For us perfectionistic, analytical types they can become proof of our worst fears about ourselves. They become evidence of our failure, our inability to rise above the circumstances. We can get into a loop of backward thinking. We think that these lapses are actually the accurate measure of our life. We might say things like, 'I always cave under pressure' or 'I can never get my act together when such-and-such happens.' When in reality, that may not be true at all. We simply may not be counting the days we succeed.

You see we each have what Psychologists call a negativity-bias. What this means is that we tend to attribute more weight or value to those negative events/words/thoughts than the positive ones. It's understandable. They hurt. There is a designated part of our brain that diligently records these painful experiences, burning them into our brain matter. Its called our hypothalamus. When things go wrong we have a store of 'evidence' to back up the fact that we are always failing/disappointing others/getting hurt/making mistakes. In reality, it is just our trusty hypothalamus drawing links and presenting its supporting evidence.

From a statistical viewpoint, this 'evidence' is actually not so trustworthy at all. It is drawn from all the most negative experiences in our lives. That means that half (or more) of the information is missing! Would you trust any election if only the negative votes were counted? And yet often this is what we do to ourselves! We only count the evidence of our failure, our hurt, or bad experiences.

This is why God repetitively tells us in His word to meditate on the good. To cast down thoughts that rise against what we know to be true. Note the word 'know' not 'feel' Sometimes things simply do not feel true. To say 'I am more than a conqueror in Christ' does not feel true when I've spent the day yelling at the kids, battling a panic attack or failing to get on top of my to do list. But guess what? It is no less true than on that day when I was mum of the year, snapped my anxiety and did my errands before morning break! The great thing about God's word is that it does not change according to our circumstances or our feelings or our successes or our failures. It stands apart and separate from us and is the definitive measure of truth; the plumb line by which we can measure our worth and all of our happenings.

The hypothalamus has its place. It is protective by nature, serving as a warning to avoid certain situations/people/cycles. Out of place, it can distort our perspective and present faulty evidence that feels truer than the breath within us.

Good thing we have the unwavering measure of who we are, recorded on the pages of our Bibles and whispered into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

Bad days are not proof of our failure or evidence that we will never get on top.
Bad days are simply those days when we have to fight harder to believe the truth.

The Holiest Ground

I am standing in my dining room. Around me are the signs and struggles of typical family life: toys and art supplies strewn around (where they should not be) a rug that needs vacuuming, half- folded washing in piles on my kitchen table....
It is a silent house.
My husband is on an errand and has taken my two little ones, lending me an opportunity I don't often have (as mothers will exquisitely understand!)
I am alone.

Just before leaving, my eight year old daughter addressed me with an urgent plea... 'Mum! don't forget the colouring competition!'
Her creativity has spilled over into a project that has filled her with excitement and a sense of urgency: she had created four identical images of bunnies collecting eggs. One for her brother, one for me and her dad and one for grandma.
On Friday she put forward her petition: 'Can you and dad please colour in the pictures before we go away on Monday?' (They are staying overnight with Grandma as it is school holidays and I have a full day at University and my husband is away on business)
She wants the competition ready for her to judge on Monday night.
My husband and I promised we would get around to it, but alas, it is Sunday evening and plans for the week ahead crush in urgently on us, cramming themselves uncomfortably into the final rays of daylight. Neither my husband or I have gotten around to the task so precious to her.

Her parting plea, instead of compelling me to action, drives me to anger.
'Don't you realise how busy mummy is? I have study and housework and I have to pack you and your brother's bags before uni tomorrow!' I send her away and I'm feeling exasperated and pressed. The disappointment in her face is the last thing I see as she leaves.

I have two hours in this silent house before they will be back.
Two hours in which I could try and do the three hours of reading required for class tomorrow.
I could begin to prepare dinner.
Hang and fold the mountain of washing.
Enjoy an indulgent and much wanted rest....

I begin my uni readings. It's sensible. It's urgent.
But.
I feel the familiar tug.
God.
He's drawing me away.
Frustrated, I retreat to my bedroom where a hasty, panicked prayer is offered up. 'But God, I have so much to do!'
And then He leads me, as He does lately, one step at a time. One foot in front of the other because it's all my hurried, jumbled brain can handle these days.

'Put your headphones on, go in the sun and colour.'

Frustrated and edgy, I gather the supplies and do as He has said.
I sit for half an hour listening to worship music as I use my son's waxy, richly hued pencils to colour in the picture my beautiful daughter has drawn.
I colour with abandon and I feel tension dissolve on the page as I stroke wild lashes of viridian green grass and ring the sun with cadmium yellow.
This simple, tactile art brings me back to a simpler time and drops an even simpler, pure message into my spirit.
This is what it's all about.
How often I forget.
How often He reminds me.

I suddenly can't wait for my daughter to arrive home.
What else can I do to make this the pleasurable experience she so desperately wants it to be?
I raid the Easter egg collection I have accumulated for next week. I choose a large bunny and tie a string around it's neck. To the string, I attach a label that says, 'The prize.'
Now the competition is really worth striving for :)
I know she will be thrilled.

I leave my entry, along with her brother's and the two blank ones, waiting to be coloured on her little table. (I will whisper in her father's ear tonight).
The prize bunny is there.
So are the crumbs from breakfast.

My perspective has returned.

God tells me quietly, 'This is the Holiest Ground.'

Where self and surrender intercept.
I take my shoes off.
The floorboards are slightly tacky beneath my feet.
My toenail polish is half worn off.
I am Moses.
This is my house, my battle ground.

And slowly, I am learning.

The Consolation of God

'Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.' Jesus, The Bible.

There is a special place in the will and heart of God for those who have suffered.
In a world that is full of injustice and atrocities of the worst imaginable kind, it is easy to doubt in the goodness of a God who claims to be all powerful, all loving and completely just. Sometimes we just can't get past the Why question and it has been responsible for a huge number of people rejecting the God of the Bible. And it is completely warranted.

Why has God chosen not to interfere on a grand scale with the happenings of a world that are unjust at best, sadistic and brutal at worst? Why the holocaust, the starving children, the abused and the molested? Where is God when the world most needs Him? Like a veil or a curtain, He seems to have pulled the clouds over Himself and taken into hiding in the heavens above and beyond the accusations of His confused, hurting and angry creation.

Or has He?

Many wise and brilliant men, intellectuals and theologians alike have posed answers to The Big Question of Suffering and I am not seeking to add any great insight that they have not already revealed at a higher, more eloquent and thoroughly researched level than I am capable. I do however have my own thoughts on the issue. Thoughts birthed out of my own experiences of injustice and suffering. And this is what I have found: Nothing that I have turned over to Him has ever come back to me empty.While He didn't stop certain pains and injustices in my own life, He has removed the sting of many traumatic experiences by offering one of the things that our God seems to do best:
Consolation.

There is a strange thing that takes place when we use the pain to turn to God rather than from Him. We find a bittersweet place of abiding in the comfort of God amidst the hurt of the circumstance, the event or the memory. I thoroughly believe that this is why Jesus actually went as far as to say 'blessed' are those who mourn. Not just 'ok' or 'comforted' are those who mourn, but blessed. Those who have drunk deeply of the tender consolation of God can only agree. There is a battle in this life, but I am beginning to believe that is not about justice versus injustice but is a war for the mind. A fight to trust in a God whose ways, at times, confuse us. As autonomous humans, we tend to say to God, 'show me your proof and then I will trust you.' Both wise and frustrating is Father God's response; 'trust me and then I will show you.'

What to Do with Haters

'I gave My back to those who struck Me,
And My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting.'
Isaiah 50:6

When we think of success, what do we think of? When we think of living out of our calling, what images come to mind? In an increasingly perfectionist and analytical society, success and power are often dependant on the ability to create and maintain a slick reputation. There are companies whose sole job is to create and recreate the persona and public perspective of high power individuals: politicians, actors and businessmen. Attempting to control the thoughts of the masses is high on the priority list if you seek to be a public figure in a modern age. It takes a lot of work to structure your words and actions to avoid alienating yourself in any way from those around you. In fact, it could easily become a full time job: part performance and part damage control. And it's not just the high powered who embrace this tenuous work. We can all feel pressured to shape the opinions of those around us in our favour, whether it is through careful social media pruning or in the way we conduct ourselves verbally to those around us. It is very much a twentieth century, first world problem, but it is understandable. People are watching. And they are making judgement.

I know some people who are boldly themselves. They let the disapproval of others slide from them like water off a duck's back. They know who they are and they are comfortable in their own skin. For the rest of us, we can become so concerned with what other people think that it begins to break into who we are. Before long we find that we have sliced pieces of ourselves off to suit the expectations of others. Or added behaviours that we think those around us want us to have. All this cutting and modelling can leave us feeling pretty inauthentic, resentful and stressed out. Pretty soon we can even forget for ourselves who we actually are.

The reason I have chosen this unusual Bible verse to focus on today is because I feel there are some vital principles relating to personal calling. This passage is a Messianic, prophetic portion of Scripture. It was written from the perspective of the coming Christ, revealing something of His work, His calling and His attitude to a world who would ultimately reject Him. See, despite the fact that He would be crucified, ridiculed and rejected in the most barbaric ways, Christ was not daunted by his haters. He had a job to do. One commissioned by the Father and He set His face like flint to do so. If we start looking around at all those people who seek to pull us down, we will fast lose sight of what it is that we are called us to do. I believe there is a concept that can be gleaned from this verse. Christ gave His back to His persecutors and this is a very interesting stance to take. He did not fight His enemies. He simply shifted His position so that they were not in His line of sight anymore. We can spend our whole life trying to fight our opponents. Trying to reason and convince them that they are wrong, that they are misunderstanding us. Jesus knew this was a fast track to falling away from His calling and we need to understand this, too. There will always be a critic. Engaging with them will keep us from the work we are meant to be doing.

Constructive criticism from those who know us and are wise, trustworthy friends is a valuable tool. But some people just want to look for the negative or fill in the blanks of what they don't understand with their own opinions. While the people themselves are not necessarily our enemies, their attitudes are toxic and can become obstacles to us, if we are not bedded deeply and confidently in who we are in Christ. The answer is simple. Know who you are and get comfortable in your calling. God has put you in your skin for a reason. He has given you gifts and talents to bless those around you. Like Christ, refuse to hide. The truth is, you will face opposition. You will face conflict. It is not your job to try to prevent that. Nor is it your job to squeeze and shape yourself to popular opinion. Your job is simple. Be you. Bravely and boldly. The people who you are meant to influence, will be influenced. As for the rest? They are God's job.

Uncertainty: the Birthplace of Trust

I often forget that while I am stuck in the middle of my own story, there is someone who stands above it, knowing beginning from end and everything in between. I wonder if we could really grasp this, how different our lives could be. The concept brings to mind a quote by author Margaret Attwood:

She states:
“When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless to stop it. It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you are telling it, to yourself or to someone else.”

I can so relate to the concept of wild, blind confusion where all the bits of life are swirling around with no apparent rhyme or reason. When things are not going to plan, it is easy to feel that our life is in chaos, that there is no rhythm or purpose or stability. It is easy, when uncertainty looms overhead, to think that these feelings are true. That we actually are lost and restless, tossing on a sea of random events. But is it true?

God tells us in His Word that He works all things together for good. He works His will in us and His purpose is revealed in all His dealings with His children. While we may feel as though things are out of control, they never actually are. We can relieve some of the discomfort of uncertainty by recognising that no matter how senseless the events seem right now, there is a time coming when we will look back and say, 'yes, I see the hand of God in that.' Life is hard. Sometimes we have to cling to that truth like a splintered board on a storm tossed sea. But this, I believe, is where we can learn to walk in the perfect peace of Christ. The peace that passes all understanding.

Uncertainty is the birthplace of trust in God, and as uncomfortable as it is (and as often as I keep saying it) it is an opportunity to deepen our intimacy with God and grow our endurance. A condition of want creates a space for God to fill. And He will. Chances are, that's exactly what He's trying to teach you.
Lean in. Hope. Someone is standing above it all.

If You've Got it, Sow it.

There is something really appealing about a person living fully alive. When individuals tap into that creative well within and begin to step forward in confidence into their gifts and calling, it is like a divine breath of life. It doesn't matter whether your calling is writing books, saving lives or making coffee. The art of living out of your sweet spot is dynamic, life giving and inspiring.
It is also...Scary.

Discovering what stirs you is one thing: having the courage to run with it, is another thing altogether. What if it's weird? What if it doesn't fit the mould? Maybe there's no job role for what it is that floats your boat. The diversity between us never ceases to amaze me. But what are we supposed to do with that unusual combination of gifts, insights and failings that make us who we are?

Run with them.
Eek. I can hear you screaming. That is all very well, you might say, but what if it doesn't work? Well, I have a simple answer.
It will work.

See there's a principle at motion when it comes to those stirrings inside us. God is a good God and he has placed a little spark within each of us. They are divine seeds and they require one thing: to be planted. Those seeds will toss around inside you like Mexican jumping beans until you get 'em out and press them into the earth. It is called sowing, and in God's economy, the return is something you can take for granted. What? You say. Does this mean that everything I do will bring a glorious harvest? What it means is this: you can't NOT do it. It is all part of moving forward into the will and plan of God for your life. Even if the harvest is not mind blowing, it is still accomplishing an important work: shaping you, making you a little older and wiser. God's blessing will be on anything you give Him, even if the outcome is different to what you anticipated.

It is a Divine principle promised to His children. He works all things together for good. Contrary to some popular belief, He actually wants us to flourish. For too long we have been tempted to think He is standing there with his pruning shears waiting to snip off any shoot of industry that should emerge in our lives. When did we forget that we are His children?

Our job is simple: If you've got, sow it. Trust him with the outcome. He will bring the sun and the rain. He will do the pruning and the staking. The life of a gardener is a life of faith: one that takes for granted the principle of life. Sometimes the seed may perish into the ground, sometimes the pests may come, but it is all working toward tomorrow's harvest. The real tragedy is to quit sowing.