Girls,
The missionaries came over tonight and showed us the new Easter video, “Jesus Christ’s Greater Love For You.” What touched me most was, as Christ was suffering and whipped and a crown of thorns placed on his head, I thought, “He didn’t escape the pain. He didn’t let himself pass out. He didn’t let himself die. He fully accepted and experienced every bit of discomfort and pain until, at last, it was finished.”
As a therapist, I see clients every day who have spent years escaping discomfort. Our brain’s main aim is to keep us alive, so it makes perfect sense. We do everything we can to not feel discomfort, including, ironically, inflicting more pain on ourselves: numbing out with marijuana gummies, numbing out with phones, numbing out with chewing tobacco, numbing out with unwanted pornotgraphy use, numbing out with food, numbing out with sex, numbing out with blaming others… My clients come to therapy every week because they don’t want to numb out anymore; they want to be free.
Christ did not allow himself to numb out, pass out, or do anything else to lessen the pain/discomfort he felt; He allowed every bit of it in—welcomed it, fully experienced it—and by submitting to it, overcame it; was perfected by it.
It’s counterintuitive.
It’s miraculous.
It’s healing.
It’s where we go if we want to receive “all power in heaven and in earth” as He did.
If we want to be free, then every time we desire to blame, to numb, to lash out, to escape … instead, we pause. We let it in; let the wave of discomfort wash over and through us. We accept it. Like Jesus.
Slowly, I say to my beautiful clients, “Find your breath. Find your rhythm. Nothing to do now but count your breaths…” And the room becomes sacred ground, where they choose to “go a little further”, where everything changes.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ “went a little further.” Not only did he not escape the pain, he intentionally moved deeper into it.
Many times this semester, I have asked and pleaded, “Is it too much?! I think this stretching is too much!” It wasn’t. It was exactly what I needed, exactly when I needed it, exactly preparing me for what comes next.
It was all going right.
Anniegirl, sometimes when you’re mad, you cry, “There is good hard and then there’s bad hard! This is bad hard!”
There’s hard that hurts and hard that really hurts. But it’s all going right—just as it was going right for Jesus. This Easter Season, I look forward to celebrating The Christ—the one who showed us how to endure by willingly choosing in to the hard.
It’s all going right.
It’s counterintuitive.
It’s miraculous.
It’s healing.
The hard is your sacred ground.
I love you, my beautiful girls,
Your mama
PS For everyone else reading this, you know I’m tired when I’m not even throwing a filter on my pictures. The girls and I went to La Jolla last minute for a night during my spring break. I was in love with the tide pools.
