The Something Better

Thank you, White Level Baptist Church, for including me in your family there—being with you truly does feel like “home” to me.

Sunday, I was given the privilege of speaking at a morning church service for Women’s Day.  I had spoken at this same church years ago, back in 2016 I believe, for this same occasion, and it felt a little surreal to be back.  While the first message I shared there was centered around my “sick season” and the woman from the Bible with a battle involving her blood, this message was centered around suicide and another woman from Scripture who had a health-related battle too—Mary of Magdala who was demon-possessed seven times over.  We tend to separate our physical and mental health, but I am going to make a concerted effort to stop doing so because I do not believe that our health should be compartmentalized; I do not believe that the struggles we have in our minds and hearts and spirits should be treated any differently than the struggles we have with the diseases we all seem much more comfortable accepting and discussing aloud.  I believe “sickness/illness” is just that, regardless of the particulars of your story or of mine.

In the Gospel of Matthew (chapter 9, verse 12), when the Pharisees wanted to know why Jesus would eat with the people in their community whom they despised and considered “unclean” Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.”  It seems that the Pharisees viewed themselves as the “healthy” ones; and it also seems that Jesus did not agree with the Pharisees’ self-assessment.  This specific story of Jesus doesn’t just make it into one of the gospels—this same story is shared in two other gospels; and the exact same quote from Jesus is found in Mark 2:15 and in Luke 5:31. Three times the early church, “The Way” followers, remind us of exactly who Jesus came for—he came for us, the most broken one of us.  I believe Jesus really, really wants us to remember this, to remember that he came, that he continues to come, to those of us who oftentimes feel the least equipped to receive Him—to those of us who feel the most unwell in one way or another.  This world is undeniably broken and as part of this world we cannot help but be broken too—and I don’t think that anyone knows and understands this better than our God who came down here in the flesh, who stepped into our humanity, to become one of us.  He knows full well how hard life here is.

After I spoke on Sunday, I would find out two things that I was unaware of before I spoke.  I would find out that two young men from the community I was in had very recently died from what appeared to be suicide; and I would find out that it was the one year anniversary of the funeral of a precious and very young woman who had grown up in the church there and had been in a car accident—I had stepped into a world of hurt.  And as I’ve reflected, I’ve realized that every single time we wake up in the morning and put our feet on the floor we are indeed stepping into a world of hurt, just like our Jesus did.  But thanks to Him, we’re not stepping into a world of just hurt but of hope too—hope for better times, better days, better wellness.  And we’re stepping into something so much bigger than ourselves every single time we choose to share that hope, even and especially amidst our most profound hurt, with those all around us—our sharing is stepping into “the something better.”  And the unquenchable love of our Christ for us all, the love that he asks us to share with one another—the love that does not end even when our life here does—is the foundation of that hope.  I felt that love on Sunday as I walked among a beautiful body of Christ’s followers, and I am so thankful for all of them.  They gave me hope that His Church is still very much alive here; and I pray that the message He gave me to share with them gave them the same hope—hope for better days ahead, hope for more wellness/healing, hope for more of the One True Love, the very best something better.

“This life is not godliness but growth in godliness; not health, but healing; not being, but becoming; not rest, but exercise.  We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way; the process is not yet finished, but it has begun; this is not the goal, but it is the road; at present all does not gleam and glitter, but everything is being purified.”   ~Martin Luther

*Thank you, Philip Yancey, for sharing this Luther quote on your page!  It is exactly what I needed to help clarify what I’m saying in my post.  I continue to be so grateful for your insight/teaching!