My knees absorb the shock, and my soul absorbs the pain

True: When I run, my knees absorb the shock, and the shock damages my knees.

True: When I experience suffering, my soul absorbs the pain, and the pain strengthens my soul.

Disagree? Confused? Keep reading.

Speaking of reading, I am currently reading this profound book entitled The Emotionally Healthy Church by Peter Scazerro, who argues very convincingly that today's Church doesn't quite know how to integrate emotional health into a Biblical, spiritual paradigm of discipleship. He offers his own testimony to this, the founder of New Life Ministries whose wife almost left the church he started and divorced him, all the result of neither of them knowing how to integrate their emotions, their past, and their desire to serve God's people into one, cohesive, Christ-led life. I'm almost to the end of this book, and I'm impressed by Scazerro's honesty and vulnerability--plus he's a very good writer and with a Master of Divinity, he has the Biblical foundation to really open the Scriptures as well. Anyways...enough of the book report. Go read it. Everyone should, especially those "in ministry."

In the chapter I recently read, "Principle 5: Embrace Grieving and Loss," Scazerro quotes Gerald Sittser's How the Soul Grows through Loss. Sittser, in a car crash, wrote this book having instantly lost his mother, wife, and their four-year-old daughter and thus in the throws of grief:

"Catastrophic loss by definition precludes recovery. It will transform us or destroy us, but it will never leave us the same. There is no going back to the past...It is not therefore true that we become less through loss--unless we allow the loss to make us less, grinding our soul down until there is nothing left. Loss can also make us more. I did not get over my loved ones; rather I absorbed the loss into my life until it became part of who I am. Sorrow took up permanent residence in my soul and enlarged it....One learns the pain of others by suffering one's own pain, by turning inside oneself, by finding one's own soul...However painful, sorrow is good for the soul...The soul is elastic, like a balloon. It can grow larger through suffering."

Sorrow, grief, and loss are all gifts! How much do we believe this with our Christian worldview, yet in our emotions, thoughts, and actions, deny this truth, living and speaking as if we don't? As Scazzero and others have said, "Holiness is impossible without wholeness." Do I really believe that "absorbing loss" until it "becomes a part of me" is the best thing for me, that diving headlong into grief and each loss, big or small, is going to bring me closer to Christ? Wow, I need more faith. Or do I do as Scazerro suggests Americans do:

"Many of us have taken on our culture's pain-denying view of grieving...People in our churches minimize their failures and disappointments. The result is that for many today, at least in prosperous North America, there is a widespread inability to face pain...Our culture trivializes tragedy and loss. Every night on the news we are given pictures of crimes, wars, famines, murders, and natural disasters. They are analyzed and reported, but there is no lamenting. Our national capacity to grieve is almost lost...When a loss enters our life, we...treat it as an alien invasion from outer space. Is it any wonder that there exists so much depression in our culture? Is it any wonder there has been such an explosion of drugs prescribed for depression and anxiety? This is unbiblical and a denial of our common humanity. The ancient Hebrews physically expressed their laments by tearing their clothes and utilizing sackcloth and ashes. Jesus himself offered up prayer and petitions with loud cries and tears (Heb. 5:7)...."

This past year, I have grown to really love the Franciscan cross. Why? Because it illustrates Jesus Christ's death as well as his resurrection. Yes, Jesus is on the cross, nails in his hands and feet, body stripped bare. But he has the Medieval halo, and saints and angels surround him, and it is clear that Christ is also resurrected and in Heaven with God the Father. Both realities are present, death and new life, a human death, a divine resurrection, in this single image.

How much better does the reality of Christ's resurrection taste when I know how in-need I am of a Savior? How much better I know God's unfailing love when I open every gift he puts in-front of me, even if the wrappings of some are grief and sorrow? Would that my own fear, anxiety, and pride not keep me from receiving everything that God gives, and not only receiving with just my mind, knowing "in-principle" that X or Y is a blessing, or half of my heart, trying to drum up a happy feeling about something that makes me feel nauseous.

But, as it's almost Lent anyways, let us turn to God and admit with honesty and humility that we still aren't whole, because we're still not adoring Him with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, even if we're giving him most of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. That's the reality, and there is no better place to live than in reality. And in living in this reality, we can finally ask Him to help us, because finally, we can see.