GRIEF AND ANGER

I want to quote some more from the book The Emotionally Healthy Church (by Peter Scazzero), and remind us all to think about paying attention to pain. On page 161 he says, "Year after year we deny and avoid the difficulties and losses of life, the rejections and frustrations. People in our churches minimize their failures and disappointments. The result is that for many today, at least in prosperous North America, there is a widespread inability to face pain. This has led to an overall feeling of superficiality and a lack of profound compassion."

He goes on to talk about how we then loose our capacity to grieve. I'm in a hard situation right now that I was talking over with my pastor the other day. I told him that I was grieving. And he said that he thought (and I wanted his help) I was acting more in sinful anger than in grief. He helped me by saying that, he's not sure this is totally right, but he thinks that the sinful anger he's talking about feels the situation and wants to retaliate, while grief feels the situation and has compassion on the other more than a desire for retaliation. What do you think?

THE REALITY OF PAIN

I worked in a hospital on Saturday. While I am so used to the ICU as a health care provider, I was reminded how most people aren't, as I passed a man going to visit a loved one in the ICU. He was about 25ish and had very red puffy eyes with tears streaming down his face. Obviously pained about the fact that someone he loves may be dying or permanently wounded, in the ICU.
I also do a lot of home health, and while I spend most of my time in North County and North City (the poorest parts of St Louis), I try not to get used to how bleak and broken those neighborhoods are. Such a contrast going from the rest of St Louis to those parts where there is so much trash so many deserted buildings, so many homeless everywhere. I don't want to become used to pain and brokenness and forget to weep over it. I am sure that that is something Jesus has called us to do. He does. I was writing an e mail and included this below:

"This e mail is going to be a plea for help for you to come alongside me in prayer as I wrestle with issues with life before the Lord. There are some big ones right now. And I am being reminded of how our goal in life is not to be the most happy and have the easiest life possible. Its to bring whatever we have before the Lord. Its so simple, but so hard to do, isn't it? Solving it is not the purpose. Its entering in. Hmmm. That's a radical difference from the world and from how I usually want to think and how even it seems that the Church in general thinks. We are always wanting to move to being problem free and to increased happiness, but that's just not where its at. Its at being before the Lord and leaning on Him for everything. And everything is so much more right and more sweet when I open up and let others come along side me as I am crying out and leaning on the Lord. So that is the intention of this e mail."