A while back I read
book, Beautiful People Don’t Just Happen: How God Redeems Regret, Hurt, and Fear in the Making of Better Humans (you can buy it here). As it was on Kindle I have easy access to the passages I highlighted1 so I thought it might be good to share them here:Sometimes we can’t see the truth about God and ourselves until we see it in a rear-view mirror.
The final thing Jerram said to me was, “Scott, in our moments of deepest worry and fear, when we catastrophize about the future, when we imagine the very worst for ourselves and for those we love—the thing we must do again and again is to talk to ourselves more than we listen to ourselves.”
Because we are not Home yet, we need help developing a framework, a vocabulary, and stories to assist us in the work of talking to ourselves more than we listen to ourselves. The shaming voice of regret can be silenced with the counter-voice of divine forgiveness and grace. The dehumanizing voice of hurt can be silenced with the counter-voice of divine compassion and presence. And the immobilizing voice of fear can be silenced with the divine counter-voice of a Saviour who will never leave us, a love that will not let us go, and future promises that will never let us down.
I hope that these words from Theodore Roosevelt in 1910 will be as helpful to you as they have been to me: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”
The combination of expecting ease on one hand and denying my own trauma on another has left me lagging in my ability to live fully in a fallen world.
As an elder said as he led our church in prayer last Sunday, “Lord, this has been a year filled with disruption, isolation, confusion, illness, and death. We ask for relief, but not without the revival of our hearts.”
Mercy reveals itself through weariness. I am not alone in realizing this.
As grief expert Elisabeth Kübler-Ross famously noted, “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
As we read the Bible, it is important to see that so many of the books—both Old Testament and New—were authored by someone who was enslaved, seeking asylum, in prison, facing persecution, or under another form of distress.
If you are a Christian, I hope you will think of the coal whenever the bread and wine of communion touch your lips. Like a coal from the altar, these are meant to be received like a kiss.
Every day she wears a bracelet with the word tetelesthai engraved on its outside, which is the Greek word Jesus cried from the cross meaning, “It is finished.” She wears the bracelet to remind herself of what is true—that her young son, a sweet and kind and loyal believer in Jesus who tragically succumbed to self-harm in a moment of weakness, will not be judged by the last thing that he did before he died. Instead, he will be judged by the last thing Jesus did before he died as he cried, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Admitting self-defeat is key to successful recovery. It involves raw honesty about your worst qualities and the destructive decisions you have made. It requires you to make amends with those who have suffered because of your choices. Recovery is built on the foundation of embracing weakness and your lack of control, which is the first essential step to getting well. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. When you are weak, then—and only then—can you become strong.
Denying the pain and sorrow that come with being alive is a form of hypocrisy. It is a choice we make to distance ourselves from the truth, or at least part of the truth, and live in a pretentious fairyland instead. When we do this, we cut ourselves off from what we were made for—loving intimacy with God and others. Intimacy cannot happen without honesty.
The absence of honesty cuts off our ability to be known. It isolates us, forcing us to be alone even when we are among colleagues, at a party, around a family dinner table, or in a marriage bed.
Somehow we must figure out a way to disentangle our legitimate hurt from the hiding impulse that is brought on by toxic shame.
The call to rejoice in the Lord is not negated by our expressions of distress; it is honoured and made complete by them.
The fact that Jesus will come again is our reason to rejoice. The fact that he has not done so yet is our reason to lament, weep, wail, and hope.
Maybe this is the exact book you need to read right now?
If you’re a Kindle user but don’t know how to access your highlights all in one place, here is where you go: https://read.amazon.co.uk/notebook (if you’re not in the UK then I’m assuming the link will take you to your location-specific one).