Your story with God

 I am continuing my way through Adam Young's fine book Make Sense of Your Story: Why Engaging Your Past with Kindness Changes Everything. Previously I have shared my highlights from the following:

• Chapter 4 - What if you engaged your family of origin story?
• Chapter 5 - Insecure Attachment: avoidant and ambivalent attachment
• Chapter 6 - Naming what is most true about your story
• Chapter 7 - What if you engaged your sexual story?
• Chapter 8 - What if you listened to the story your body is telling you?
• Chapter 9 - What if you explored your collective/cultural story?

Today we take up again, looking at chapter 10: "What If You Explored Your Story With God?" This is a phenomenal chapter. It's one of those I wrote across the chapter title page "Preach!" I'm not sure if I can fit everything I've underlined or highlighted here (without including the entire chapter). Here is at least some of it...

p. 191 - "At the core of your heart is the history of how you have interacted with God about your desires and disappointments..."

Much of the rest of the chapter deals with 'Biblical Lament.'

p. 193 - ***"Job chose not to deny his pain. He chose not to deny or ignore his story, as awful as it was. He spoke about it. He put words to his emotional turmoil. He found language to express his internal reality. This is what it means to engage your story with God." 

"When your world is falling apart, will you open your mouth? Will you have the courage to express to God what you are truly feeling inside?"

"Lament is what comes out of you when your dreams are shattered. Job's heart was so tormented by his pain that his lament brought him to curse the day of his birth."

p. 194 - "...there is no shortage of biblical heroes who wished they were dead" (He lists: Rebekah (Gen. 27:46), Moses (Num. 11:15), Elijah (1 Kings 19:4), Jonah (Jon. 4:3), and Jeremiah (Jer. 20:14, 18).

p. 195 - "The laments that fill the book of Job... give us permission to feel. And if you're a Christian, chances are you need that permission. Specifically, to feel your so-called negative emotions. If you are going to explore your story, you need to feel your anger, fear, and sadness." 

Two questions on this page: 1) What is keeping you from feeling these feelings? 2) What if you prayed your feelings?

p. 196 - "Lament consists of two things: (1) allowing yourself to feel your sorrow/grief/sadness, and (2) expressing that sorrow/grief/sadness."

p. 197 - "It takes more faith and trust to take your sorrow to God than it does to push down your true feelings or deny them."

"...the path of lament need not lead to despair. Despair results when we lament without hope." 

p. 198-199 - "It is not pain we fear, it is aloneness and meaninglessness in the pain. Lamenting alone leads to despair. But lament poured out to God leads to something else. Eventually, it leads to connection with God and some measure of meaning in the pain (which in no way makes the pain 'worth it.')."

***"Tears are a form of confession. They are the ultimate acknowledgment of what was - and is - true. They are the breakthrough of the (sometimes very long) denial of reality. But, as Walter Brueggemann reminds us, 'embrace of ending permits beginnings... [for] only grievers can experience their experiences and move on.'" 

Good stuff under the heading: Feelings As A Window To Desire...

***"God does not call you to get rid of your sorrow or your anger or your fear; God calls you to honesty about your sorrow, anger, and fear." 

p. 206 - "Here's the thing: God can handle your anger. God is neither surprised by it nor afraid of it."

p. 208 - "The best way to assure it does not harm those you love is to welcome your anger, get to know it, and express it well." 

"Acknowledging your anger and expressing it will introduce you to yourself. It will allow you to become more connected to the truth of the heartbreak of your story. Your anger can lead you to get to know yourself better and to know your story better."

CHAPTER 10 KEY POINTS

• Your story likely includes seasons of deep pain and disappointment. One way to let that pain and disappointment move through you is to take the risk of genuinely expressing them to God.
• The biblical practice of lament allows you to connect with your true emotions and give voice to your sorrow and grief.
• Although it may feel scary to express your anger to God, it is an act of honesty and integrity that is essential for a genuine relationship with the divine.

 

And, there is that. Next time I will delve into chapter 11: "What if you explored your story with kindness?"