Tag: comfort

Hurt People Heal People

What do you think of when I say the word “pain?” I’m certain that I don’t need to jog your memory for a list of painful circumstances you might have experienced. Your current unemployment, your bout with cancer, or your messy divorce surely come to mind of their own accord. And now that I’ve triggered such unwelcome flashbacks, you must be asking why I would do such a thing. What point is there in reliving pain?

Pain Hurts

But the problem of pain is not the pain itself. From pregnancy to pull-ups, many of us will welcome pain into our lives because we already know the purpose behind it. As many expectant mothers will relate, “A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world” (John 16:21). Rather the problem of pain is the problem of meaninglessness.

Meaninglessness Kills

 A close friend of mine and his wife were diagnosed with cancer within a year of one another. Another friend of mine whose been dealing with insomnia and depression recently had a miscarriage. And I had my own fresh hell at the start of this year. When answers are lacking and our wounds haven’t even scabbed over yet, empty platitudes won’t suffice. “God works all things together for good”  (Romans 8:28) doesn’t seem to cut it anymore. What “good” could possibly come from such tremendous loss?

Reframing Heals

One of our greatest superpowers as human beings is our ability to choose how we interpret our past trials. Vulnerability researcher Dr. Brene Brown once said that the power of a story is that it grants us control over our narrative. We are no longer the victim of our experiences but its author. And we can leverage that narrative authority to write a better ending for ourselves and for others.

Conclusion

We don’t have the ability to choose all the hellish things we’ll go through in this life, but we can decide if we pass that hell on to others or leverage it to drag them back from the abyss.

“All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.”

(2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

Leaving Nazareth

By Ife J. Ibitayo

Jesus Christ was a country boy. He was raised in a Podunk town in the backwaters of Judea. The geographic blip was so inconsequential even one of Jesus’ own disciples said, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there” (John 1:46)?

Yet Nazareth was also Jesus’ home. It was where His parents, siblings, and childhood friends lived (Mark 6:3).  It was where his mother taught him how to walk and his father how to woodwork. Sadly, Nazareth was also where Jesus suffered his first rejection. Here Jesus uttered the words, “A prophet is not without honor except in His own town, among His relatives and in His own home (Mark 6:4).” In Nazareth’s synagogue he declared His mission to “bind up the brokenhearted and set the captives free” (Luke 4:1). Yet it was the only place in all of scripture “He was not able to heal many sick because of their lack of faith” (Mark 6:5). So with a heavy heart, Jesus had to leave Nazareth.

The Challenge of Leaving Nazareth

As I sit on an aircraft right now, flying back to Washington D.C. for the last time, I think of the “Nazareth” I’ll soon be leaving as well. My experience was nothing like Jesus’. Here I forged friendships I hope to carry with me till I die. I recovered from old wounds I never thought would mend. And my vision for my future crystallized so clearly I can almost taste it. But almost is just not good enough.

Within three months of when I landed in this great city, God told me I would be leaving. With my eyes set on Los Angeles, I’ve often found myself wondering why leaving Nazareth is so hard for me.

The Pain of Leaving Nazareth

As I mentioned earlier, Nazareth is home. And home is familiar. Whenever we step into God’s calling for our lives, it will be uncomfortable. The shy girl will have to stand up and speak out for the needs of the silent. The clean freak will have to get their hands dirty to serve the homeless and destitute. The introvert will have to reach out and bring the lonely into their family. Comfort is not something any of us part with willingly.  

Secondly, Nazareth is old. We have old friendships we can tap into and old haunts we can visit. We have established roots that help us weather the fiercest storms of life. But when we enter into the new, everything changes. We have to find a new job, a new home, and a new family. No wonder Jesus said, “everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29). He was speaking from personal experience. When Jesus left His throne in heaven, His family of the Father and the Spirit, and His home of heaven, His heart must have broken. And it must have shattered again when He left His earthly home too.

The Reward of Leaving Nazareth

But an essential shift took place when Jesus left Nazareth. Matthew 6 says “Leaving Nazareth, He went and lived in Capernaum which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali— to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah: Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the Way of the Sea beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned (Luke 6:13-16). In order to be where God wanted Him to be, Jesus had to leave Nazareth.

And so it is with us. That well-paying job is our Nazareth. That steady girlfriend is our Nazareth. Or even that up-and-coming city with booming nightlife is our Nazareth. But if Jesus clung onto His Nazareth, He never would have laid hold of heaven. We too have a heaven to reach, and a cross lays between us and the haven we seek. But every step of this grand adventure will be worth leaving Nazareth.

“‘Truly I tell you,'” Jesus replied, ‘no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.'”

(Mark 10:30)

The Freedom of the Terrifying Truth

By Ife J. Ibitayo

I recently read an article about a number of anti-vaccine radio hosts who died of COVID. This got me thinking, “What happens when your beliefs are rooted in something other than reality?”

We all hold fundamental beliefs that we think are self-evident like “We should all have a right to choose” and “Love is love.” We hold to such statements because, just like gravity, they ground us. They provide a comforting framework through which we can make sense of our dizzyingly complex world. But comfort is not a sufficient reason to hold on to any belief.

The Terrifying

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “I still believe that freedom is the bonus you receive for telling the truth. Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” This truth resonated strongly in March 1965, when the suffering of the black community viscerally confronted white America.

The United States government passed the Civil Rights Act the year before. They were attempting to legislate desegregation from the top down. But it could be argued that the dismantlement of “separate but equal” institutions did not begin in earnest until Bloody Sunday. On that fateful afternoon, racist local law enforcement brutally beat down Martin Luther King Jr. and thousands of others. It could not have been comfortable for any “upstanding, moral” American to come to terms with the vile ugliness of complacency lying in their souls. But only when our nation was awoken from its slumber could it continue the hard work of reconciliation.

This behavior is not anomalous. It’s a worsening trend. 2 Timothy 4:20 says, “For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear.” Now is that time. In the internet age, we can find voices that preach whatever message we want to hear. We live in a generation when many are entrenching themselves in their worldviews, attempting to block out the terror of reality.

The Truth

But Martin Luther King Jr.’s statement still rings true today, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” Grounding, orientation, only comes when we submit our preferences to the one who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

Someone once said that no one holds the market on truth, and there is some validity to this statement. No politician, no preacher, no blogger has got it all right. That’s why we must be willing to question and challenge them. But we ourselves don’t know it all either. That’s why we must be willing to humbly retract and correct ourselves. Yet truth does exist. And if it can’t be found with humanity, maybe it can be found with the one who made us all.

“‘You say that I’m a king,” Jesus replied. “I was born for this, and I have come into the world for this: to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.’”

(John 18:38)

Reframing (Healing House Pt. 1)

By Ife J. Ibitayo

A well-known pastor once said that “the church spends most of its time focusing on physical healing when the most important healing we need is emotional and spiritual healing. We can find joy with a broken body, but no one can find joy with a broken spirit.”

I’ve dealt with my share of physical ailments, from habitual headaches to nagging joint issues. But these pale in comparison to the emotional pain I’ve endured: crippling discouragement, crushing rejection, and corrosive loneliness to name a few. Yet my life in my ways has not been exceptional. We all have some measure of healing that we need from the LORD.

Reframing the Past

One of the first steps to healing is reframing the past. We need to actively and aggressively search for how God was working through the events that continue to haunt us.

Reframing the past doesn’t mean putting on rose-tinted glasses. The cancer really was that bad. Being fired really was unfair. We shouldn’t trivialize the suffering we experienced. Rather, reframing is our freedom to choose the aspects of our past memories that we focus on.

I’ve shared quite a bit about the past seven years of my life. If you’ve followed my blog for long enough, you might conclude that my undergraduate years were nightmarish, my graduate years were hellish, and my COVID year has been unspeakable. But there is another side to my story that I’ve done great disservice to.

Reframing My Past

While attending the University of Texas at Austin for my undergraduate studies, I entered into a deeper relationship with God than I ever had before. I grew in the amount of time I spent in His word and in prayer. I found solace and comfort as I poured my heart out to God every night in my closet. I found friendship and community that I didn’t ask for but really needed. God released the snares of pornography from my soul. And I received a world-class education that I’m still benefiting from today.

When I attended Purdue University for my graduate studies, God brought me into an intimate and special season with Himself. He spoke with me each day and uniquely guided even my most mundane of tasks. He protected me from harm and opened up doors at just the right moment. I accomplished amazing tasks in my last year that in my wildest dreams I couldn’t have imagined on day one.

Lastly, this past year God has again shown up strong. As I was freefalling into isolation, He caught me in His safety net of friends and families. He’s cheered my heart with small and big news. And He’s healed my body and spirit through the strangest of circumstances: from an old mentor that reached out to used books that I stumbled upon.

Conclusion

As long as we remember our history for the evil it brought us, it will continue to ensnare us. It’s like having an arm that broke long ago and snapping it out of joint every time we look at it. We have to courageously let go of the trauma of the past and embrace our hope for the future.

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

(Romans 8:28)