When Trials Come

When trials come, no longer fear

For in the pain our God draws near

To fire a faith worth more than gold

And there His faithfulness is told

And there His faithfulness is told.

I was blessed *cough*or something*cough* with a highly empathetic soul. It took me years on my own and then a few months of deep soul searching with a trusted counselor to figure out that I could have my own feelings. That I didn't need to take on the feelings of the people around me. That if I had a good day, I didn't need to feel guilty if one of my dear friends had a bad day. That if I had a bad day, it was okay to just sit and breathe with it until I gained perspective and clarity. 

It's also the reason why I've come to the realization that I have to take time in the morning to remind myself of God's promises first thing, and THEN I can go on social media. If I wake up and see, right away, that the world around me is shattered and broken, I carry that weight - even if it isn't asked of me - of being shattered and broken. Sometimes I can snap out of it by listening to worship songs or reading scripture or laughing, but there are other days when I can't: when, for all intents and purposes, I become focused on the brokenness of the world and carry a weight on my heart and mind.

Within the night I know Your peace

The breath of God brings strength to me

And new each morning mercy flows

As treasures of the darkness grow

As treasures of the darkness grow

I have come to love the empathetic part of me, as much as it seems like a hinderance at times. It gives me a glimpse into the heart of Christ who is mediating to the Father on our behalf. 

I recently was at a funeral in which the death of Christ struck a profound cord in the depths of my soul - the cries of the Perfect One on the night on which He was taken for the Father to take the cup of death from Him. That He sweat drops of blood because He was so stressed, in such agony already. The weight of the world WAS on His heart; the pain of sin and the brokenness of the world was on His shoulders.

And it was, in that instant, a lightening bolt - Christ understands. He understands the depth and breadth and width of the human experience. He understands pain and sorrow, stress, anguish, bereavement, joy, laughter, celebration. He gets it. He truly and completely empathizes. 

I turn to wisdom not my own

For every battle You have known

My confidence will rest in You

Your love endures, Your ways are good

Your love endures, Your ways are good

My empathetic heart sometimes needs to remember that I am not able to carry the weight of the world by myself. That there is One who has carried the weight of the world and that He continues to understand the pain of brokenness and He continues to have a heart for the broken. 

"It is not the healthy who need a doctor..."

As a student of worship, I remember very clearly the lessons told me of leading a service with the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other - that the brokenness of the world is understood in the Bible and answered in Christ. That we live in the already-but-not-yet: Christ has already come, already died on the cross, already started the redemptive process of answering the evils of the world with salvation and Justice, but yet we are still waiting for His return, to make all things New. For the New Heavens and the New Earth, where there will be no more crying or mourning or pain. Where our "chief end," as the Westminster Catechism puts it, will be to truly and completely "glorify God and enjoy Him forever."

When I am weary with the cost

I see the triumph of the cross

And in it's shadow I will run

Till You complete the work begun

Till You complete the work begun.

But until then, sometimes I am weary. My heart breaks over and over when I see the stories of women and men who have been abused by people who claim love, the stories of children kidnapped, addictions, homelessness, social injustices, children turned into sex slaves or human beings sold into modern-day slavery. And sometimes that newspaper in one hand gets incredibly heavy. Sometimes I'm unable to hold it because in it lies stories of sin and brokenness. 

Sometimes I can't even see the cross through all of the muck. And that's the truth. 

This empatheic heart of mine gets sucked in because I have experienced pain and agony. I have experienced abuse at the hand of someone who claimed love. I have experienced the struggle of trying to figure out the will of God and then collapsing while saying, "Not my will, but Yours."

Sin is heavy. But it's already been picked up by One infinitely stronger than I. By One who sweat drops of blood while collapsing and saying, "Not my will, but Yours."

One day all things will be made new

I'll see the hope You've called me to

And in Your kingdom paved with gold

I'll praise Your faithfulness of old

I'll praise Your faithfulness of old.

And so, I remember. I remember that God has always been faithful. In the Garden. To Abraham. To Isaac. To Jacob. To Israel. To David. 

And I remember that God has a habit of calling those to Himself that seem like the least-likely candidates - Jacob, the youngest, the liar. Rahab, the prostitute. David, the shepherd. The people who consistently turned away to Him and then repented and then turned away and then repented. The fishermen. The tax-collecter. The persecutor of the Church. 

And I have hope that maybe God will do the same to those who abuse. That the Church will be the hand of God and intervene in those situations, calling not only those who have been abused to find comfort and healing, but also the abusers to find peace and reconciliation and forgiveness. That the Church will point the addict to the One who can help them find true peace. That the Church will continue to search for those who are lost. That Sunday mornings will be about recognizing our own brokenness and welcoming those who are lost to find the One who longs to bring them Home. 

That we will stop treating certain sins as unforgivable and a reason for ostracizing while treating other sins with kid gloves and accepting them as part of the human life. 

And I pray that we will be bringers of peace. That we will share the weight of sin and pain together. That Sunday mornings will stretch into Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursdays and Fridays and Saturdays. Because the exhortation to "Go in peace" not only tells us to have the peace of Christ but to spread it to all we encounter.

Italicized lyrics: "When Trials Come" by Keith & Kristyn Getty, from their album "Awaken the Dawn."