Pastor Judy's Blog

Pain with a Point

There are moments in my life where I feel acutely aware of the enormous amount of pain in this world. It happens when the news brings images of a father continuing to dig through the rubble of a earthquake for the remains of his entire family. Or when the newspaper tells the story of a child who survived unscathed only to find no parents to help him survive what’s next. A roadside bomb rips the legs off a young man who went to serve on a far away continent and a continent struggles with an epidemic of HIV/AIDS. A young girl is sold for sex and a young man is shot for nothing.

Some days I don’t even have to open the newspaper to find the pain. The phone rings and a funeral follows. I have lunch with my friends and find out their marriage is finished. Someone sits in my office and sifts through their sin or sorts through their sadness and it floods into my life and pours over my heart and soon I find myself standing knee deep in a puddle of pain. Have you felt that way? Knee deep in a puddle of pain? Perhaps even this morning you find yourself dampened by the pain and hoping the puddle will simply dry up.

What are you going to do now? Some will internalize it and let it harden their hearts, others with submit to it and their hearts will drown and still others will fight against it until their hearts are battered and torn. What are you going to do with the pain? My friend Doug Bixby, a fellow Covenant pastor, says that for many people “Suffering produces pain, and pain produces discouragement, discouragement produces disillusionment, disillusionment leads to hopelessness and hopelessness always disappoints us.” Doug reminded me this week that this is what happens when we don’t know what to do with our pain and when it feels that pointless it always flows the wrong way.

When the pain seems pointless it is easy to follow the progression that Doug details. Perhaps that’s why the scriptures package pain differently. “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.” (2 Cor. 1:3-5) Our pain is not pointless it can be used to fuel comfort and compassion for others.

This morning as we gather together for worship we have the opportunity hear from Princess Zulu, a woman of God who has not let the pain of her life be pointless but has let God channel it into a river of life that flows from deep within her out into the world around her. She writes, “I am one of 33 million people living with HIV in our world today. This virus has claimed the lives of my mother and father, baby sister and brother. It has taken the lives of 25 million around the world and orphaned 15 million children. In the midst of this suffering, I continually remind myself that HIV does not own me or my soul. It is only a visiting stranger in my body. How I choose to respond is up to me and I choose to respond by using my voice to fight for those whose voice cannot be heard.” Princess Zulu has used the pain to push her toward a purpose.

This morning we will also have the opportunity to hear from Djougine Desrosiers, a 2009 graduate from North Park University. Djougine is a native of Haiti and will join us this morning to share with us her great pain for her homeland and her hope that we will let the pain we see and the pain we feel flow into a bigger purpose. This morning we will take an offering for the Haitian people. We will not let their pain and our pain be pointless but will pool it together so that it might be a stream of refreshing in a dry and thirsty land.

Come ready to let pain have a point.

Beyond Forgiveness

I met Ludarites ten years ago. We met when we were both invited to a Bible study at friend’s church in Miami. At that time Luda was a dancer in a men’s club. She was from Brazil and had come to the United States with little money and no green card and a dream for a better life but she was making a living as a dancer.

The last time I saw Luda, we ate dinner together at a nice restaurant in Miami where we talked long and hard about God’s grace and how this free gift was something that God desired to give to her personally. It had taken many years and many people speaking into her life, but that evening Luda finally came to believe that that God’s grace was sufficient for her.

I was so excited I said, “Luda, God is going to use you to do amazing things!” “No,” she said, as she put her head down, “I’m not like you.” “But I’m just like you” I said. “a sinner saved by God’s grace and God has given me the grace to do amazing things. That’s the promise Luda. We’re not just saved from sin, but we’re saved to do amazing things, things that are bigger and better than ourselves.”

Did you hear that? Do you believe it? I believe it is true for all of us. We are saved to do amazing things. Saved to do things bigger and better than ourselves. That’s the promise right from Jesus lips.“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these… because I am going to the Father.” John 14:12

Doing amazing things is not just our idea. It is God’s plan. When God saves people in this life it is so that they can be a sign and a foretaste of what God wants to do for the whole world. And because God wants to do amazing stuff for the whole world, right down to every last piece of creation, I believe it’s God’s plan that we would all do amazing things.

And don’t you want that? I believe most people who believe in Jesus are looking for this…looking for more than the forgiveness of our sins. Don’t most of us want to know that God has saved us for something? Don’t we all want to know that the grace that saved us is not the end of “the amazing”, but the beginning?

Are you one of the people looking for a more than forgiveness? Not that forgiveness isn’t a lot. I’ve heard it said that if all God did was forgive us it would be more than we deserve and that’s true it would be more than we deserve but it’s not all that’s promised. God promises to send us the power of the Holy Spirit to live within us. God promises us access to the same power that resurrected Jesus from dead. And it is through this power that we are able to do “Greater things than Jesus did.”

Yesterday, I was having a conversation with Tony Zamble, our Urban Outreach Coordinator and he provided me with a great illustration. Perhaps an illustration with which at this time of year you are all too familiar. On most antibiotic prescriptions there is the instruction to take all of the pills. “Do not stop if you begin to feel better. Take the whole prescription.” Some in the church today have not finished the regimen. They have believed in Jesus but not lived into power promised through the Holy Spirit. But as Tony reminded me, “If you only take half the dose it never works as well.”

Come and join us this morning as we talk about what it looks like to enter into the full regimen of God’s Spirit so that we might all do amazing things for the benefit of God’s Kingdom.

In the Spirit of the Resurrection, Pastor Judy

The Octopus

In the recent days I’ve thought a lot about new life and new possibilities. This happens for me several times a year, but most poignantly at the turn from one year to the next. In thinking about God making all things news, I’ve made a few new resolutions and settled into a few new visions. Some are exciting to me and some I find overwhelming even to begin. I trust your thoughts are similar.

In the midst of all of this thinking about how newness happens and whether or not it is truly possible to make all things new, I had a dream. Now I’m going to ask you to stick with me, for it was a crazy dream. However, this morning I find it worth telling for I think it contains truth for all of us as we seek to be a part of what is new.

I dreamed there was an octopus in the lake. It was a huge octopus, if I remember correctly it was far bigger than a house. There was a man swimming in the lake taking a good look at the creature and I yelled at him for he was swimming far too close to that big dangerous thing. I’m not sure if he heard me or not but he continued to swim and before I could blink the octopus ate him. Now I told you this was a crazy dream.

I began to yell at others that were swimming in the lake. “Run,” I yelled and many made a beeline for the beach. However not all escaped the tentacles of the giant beast. To my horror a small boy was wrapped in one of the tentacles and I ran up and wrestled with the octopus to free this small captive. (I admit there may have been too many movies over break) When I was finally able to free him, life and breath had already left his small body. I was devastated at first but then I took him by the shoulders and I said frantically, “Live! Live!” But nothing happened. I was frantic and so I did the only think I could think of...I took in a deep breath and breathed on him and he lived.

Now when I told this story to my husband he told me he was not so concerned about the octopus in the lake but he was mildly concerned about the Messiah complex I was developing. We both had a good laugh but I have not been able to get the dream out of my mind. I want that. I want to help people avoid what is far too dangerous to engage. I want to let people know that there are some times in which we just need to run. And for those who get caught I want to help them live again. Messiah complex? Maybe. Or maybe it’s just a disciple complex. Maybe in this new year I just want to be what God designed me to be...a disciple, someone who looks out for others, whose not afraid to step in even at risk of their own life, and who knows that the same Spirit that resurrected Jesus from the dead now lives in me.

May you find yourself emboldened to tackle even the biggest creatures and may you find in your work that you are the one that breathes life into people along the way.