Miracles in the Middle of the Mess
A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.
—LEONARD COHEN, THE FAVOURITE GAME
There was nothing unusual about the way that day began. It was a Thursday and I was doing what I’ve done at least a thousand Thursdays before: getting into my car to drive to the airport. My luggage was in the trunk, briefcase and jacket in the backseat, and coffee in my to-go mug. I opened the garage door, started the engine, and was about to put the car into reverse when I stopped. I sat for a moment wondering why I felt compelled to stop.
Had I forgotten something?
No. That wasn’t it.
Did I remember to lock the back door?
That wasn’t it either.
That’s when it hit me. I was on the edge of a holy moment. The voice of God was speaking in my spirit.
I didn’t hear an audible voice, but I felt the strong awareness that somewhere inside, the still, small voice of God was whispering. I stepped out of the car and stood quietly by the driver’s side door, trying to listen to that small interior whisper. As I waited in the quiet, hands raised in expectation, I sensed that I was being given a new assignment.
As I’ve shared over the previous twenty years, I have lived under that mandate of Paul’s commitment to the believers in Thessalonica: “We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God’s Good News but our own lives, too” (1 Thess. 2:8). When I spoke, I brought together the power of the Word of God and the mercy of how God has met me in my brokenness. But as I stood in the garage, I wondered if that was changing. Was it time to put my story behind me?
But even as I asked God if that was what He wanted, I sensed that wasn’t it. And in that moment, I had the strangest yet overwhelming desire to stand up taller. I’m only five feet four inches tall, so that’s a tough call; but as I straightened as best I could, I felt as if I was coming to attention, as if I was receiving military orders. I sensed I was being called to fight in a new way. I wasn’t sure at the time what it all meant, but I heard myself say, “Yes, Lord!” out loud. I stood in the garage for a few moments, hands raised, embracing whatever God willed.
The moment passed, so I got back into the car, started the engine, and drove to the airport. I boarded the airplane for a speaking engagement at a large women’s conference in Springfield, Missouri, hosted by James River Church. I’d been a guest of Pastor John Lindell and his wife, Debbie, before, and I’d heard through mutual friends that God was moving Debbie into a new season of ministry after her brutal battle with breast cancer. I was anxious to be with her. Even more, I was anxious to see what God might do.
I smiled as I was escorted into the backstage greenroom at the arena that night. It was decorated to the hilt. There were plates of cookies with BELIEVE, the theme of the conference, piped in pink and white frosting. Pink and white roses were artistically arranged on each little table, and the chatter that often precedes the first night of a conference filled the room. There were three of us speaking that weekend—Debbie, Darlene Zschech, and me. We didn’t connect before the event to compare notes, but God was about to weave a powerful message through all three of us. The power of Christ was about to shine through our wounds.
First Debbie spoke. She shared her battle scars—what it’s like to journey through the darkness when cancer invades. What used to be the wide, well-lit path of life suddenly becomes a frightening, dark tunnel, Debbie said. Life becomes about one thing—battling the dragon that has invaded your body. She held nothing back, making it clear that it had been a rough fight, but there was strength in every word she spoke. Rather than diminishing her strength, Debbie’s personal battle with cancer had fine-tuned it. As I watched her onstage that night, I saw the beauty that is born when brokenness is placed in the hands of a master Creator.
Debbie’s courage, her ability to speak openly about her battle, took the disease that disfigures a woman’s body and so often bruises her soul, and removed its power. She named the fear that always lurks in the shadows of any diagnosis, especially a cancer diagnosis; but as she shared, it became clear that her story wasn’t simply one of survival. It was bigger than that.
She walked us through her tunnel of fear and helped us see that Christ had walked with her, even in her hardest moments. She didn’t pretend that the journey was easy, but she’d made it through by the power of Christ, and there she was, standing in front of us, calling us out of our scary places together. She reminded us that what we believe about our lives affects everything.
If we believe we are loved, we will live loved.
If we believe we are strong in the power of God, we will live strong.
If we believe Christ is with us in our fear, we will be brave.
If we believe that Christ is with us in the mornings of life, He will be there at midnight too.
Darlene spoke next. I knew her as a powerful worship leader. Her song “Shout to the Lord” is a classic in many churches around the world. I’d witnessed her anointing to lead us into the presence of God in worship, but I’d never heard her speak before. It was powerful. She read this passage from the book of Isaiah:
He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint. (40:29–31 ESV)
I’ve heard many great messages on that text, but there was a quiet, confident beauty in the way Darlene spoke about what it means to wait for the Lord. She stood onstage, arms folded, tapping her foot—waiting the way so many of us often do. Her body language spoke volumes—Come on, God, hurry up.
Proper waiting, she said, was different. She stood quietly, leaning forward in anticipation. She was still, expectant. It was such a beautiful picture of a well-loved daughter waiting for the next word from her Father. It would have been a compelling enough picture if she’d learned it on the beaches of her homeland of Australia, but she’d learned it in the dark night of battle too.
As she spoke about her own journey with cancer, that passage of Scripture became flesh and blood before our eyes. She spoke of the days when every bit of strength was gone and all she could do was wait and lean on Christ. But where was He amid the pain and the fear?
Darlene shared of her exhaustion on one particular day when the effects of chemotherapy and the sickness in her body and soul were overwhelming. Her phone was lying beside her bed, and hearing the familiar ping of an incoming text message, she picked it up. It was from Debbie Lindell. They had never been in regular contact before, but Debbie felt compelled to reach out to this sister, thousands of miles away in Australia, and tell her, “I understand. You will get through this.”
It was the reminder that Darlene needed: to know she was not alone. And this message was the pure, life-affirming gift of hope. Debbie had offered community, had become the broken bread and wine poured out for Darlene. Debbie had become the body of Christ in action, calling Darlene out of the lie that she wasn’t going to make it and speaking life into the abject despair that fear can bring.
Debbie offered a small gesture in Darlene’s season of darkness. And this gesture became such a lovely picture for the five thousand women in the arena. Darlene and Debbie showed what it looks like to be a safe place for each other, to confront lies, fear, and shame, and to dispel secrets. The comfort Darlene experienced from Christ was profound, yet God put it on the heart of another woman to speak into the hardest moments. Do you see the beauty and grace of that? God could have said, “I’m all you need.” Instead, at her lowest moment, He sent a friend to say, “I’m here for you too.” Christ comes to us in the safety of sisterhood, in the safety of community. Darlene made that clear.
As Darlene brought her message to a close, she invited the women in the arena who were in their own cancer battles to stand, and she prayed over them. It was powerful. The strength in Christ that Debbie had passed to Darlene now made its way around an arena full of women. Tears were shed and hope filled the room. It wasn’t a traditional “healing” service—certainly not in the way I’ve understood it before. It was bigger than that. There was a recognition that some of the women in that arena might lose their cancer battles, but even still, a more significant battle was being won. It was the battle against fear, loneliness, and the shameful lies we tell ourselves. In the coming together as sisters it becomes clear: Our wounds were never meant for us alone.
I was scheduled to speak the following day, and as I woke that next morning and looked through my notes, I wondered if I should change my message. I wasn’t sure if my encounter with God in the garage demanded a new direction, so I spread my notes and my Bible out on the bed and got down on my knees and prayed.
Here I am, Lord. Everything that’s brought me to this place at this time I offer up to You. I’m holding nothing back. Do with me and through me as You will. Thank You for the honor of bearing Your name. Thank You for the scars that have brought me closer to You.
I was thirty minutes into a forty-minute message when I recognized that I should shift the conclusion. I’d planned on inviting women to respond to God and come to the altar, but what I sensed now was not the sort of altar call I’d ever given or experienced before. I paused for a moment, convinced that God was asking me to push into this new direction. So I asked the audience the unthinkable question: Is there anyone in the crowd who has ever attempted suicide or been plagued by suicidal thoughts like I’d been?
Then I asked, “If you’re like me, would you be willing to join me at the front?”
I will never forget the next few moments. Women began to leave their seats and pour down to the front of the stage. They came from the back of the arena and from the balconies. I stood with tears pouring down my face as I looked at them. Some were in their teens and some were in their seventies. There were hundreds of them. I thought back to nights when I’d believed I was the only Christian in the world who struggled with suicidal thoughts. But as the women poured down the aisles, I saw how many there were. Some women had struggled with suicidal thoughts for most of their lives, and some for only a short while. But here they were, and the thought struck me: we were not alone.
Something rose up in me on that stage, and I swear my five-foot-four stature stretched to six feet. I felt fierce, confident. I looked at the women who remained in their seats, the community of women who didn’t struggle with suicide or depression, and I asked each to stretch out her hands toward the struggling daughters of God as a sign that we were standing together. Then, I prayed.
I asked God to shine His light into our darkness.
I asked Him to breathe hope into the stagnant filth of despair.
I asked for His truth to penetrate the lies we had all believed for so long.
Then I closed with a scripture I have loved since I was a child:
The LORD is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid? (Ps. 27:1 ESV)
I have shared the first verse of Psalm 27 hundreds of times in my life. But that night, for the very first time, I declared the final two verses of Psalm 27 out loud over each one of us who chose to stand in the light. And that night I believed these words:
I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living!
Wait for the LORD;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the LORD! (27:13–14 ESV).
As I spoke, something became crystal clear. When we try to hide our wounds, our scars, our cancers, all those things we believe make us less lovely, we make fear and shame the stronghold of our lives. But when we bring our wounds to Christ, when we out our secrets and shame, we make Him the stronghold of our lives, and He uses our wounds for His purposes. He makes something beautiful of us.
When we bring our wounds to Christ, when we out our secrets and shame, we make Him the stronghold of our lives, and He uses our wounds for His purposes.
It’s the antithesis of what we feel must be true. Can you imagine what the church would be like if we all told the truth with gentleness and courage? It’s not that we want to become the poster children for depression or cancer or disappointment or struggle; we just want to put those things in their place. Yes, bad things happen, but we are not alone. Jesus prepared us.
If you’ve experienced a suicide among your family or friends, then you probably know that a common thought about suicide is that it is an act of cowardice. That can be true. If someone has created financial or relational chaos in their lives and it’s about to be exposed, suicide may seem like an easy way out. But to those who have struggled with mental illness, suicide is slipping over the edge. For those weary warriors, suicide is not an easy way out; it’s the only thing left that makes sense to them in that moment. The dark night of mental illness is suffocating. In that kind of despair, it’s hard to reason. You just want the pain to stop.
I attended the funeral of a young married man who took his life after a long battle with crippling depression. It was a sad occasion. After the service, many of us joined the family for coffee. While the young widow was out of the room, a couple of people made the remark that this was the act of a coward.
With tears pouring down my face, I said, “All you see is that he ended his life at twenty-six. What you’ve missed is how bravely he fought for twenty-six years, and that he said yes to life and to Christ.” I don’t pretend to understand what takes place in those final moments between a broken believer and God’s suffering servant, the risen Christ, but I do believe this: when desperate children of God take their own lives, God may not have called them home, but He welcomes them home.
I shared the story of my dad’s suicide at a little church in New England last year. I talked about the assurance I have that my dad is safely home with Christ. At the end of the service two women brought a young girl to me. She must have been about sixteen, with long dark hair, pale skin, and sunken eyes. She was crying so hard she could hardly stand, so we sat together on the steps leading up to the platform. Finally, she told me about her father’s long battle with mental illness. She said that he was an amazing dad who loved Jesus and his family well, but one night he took his life. Her next words were heartbreaking. “I was told that my dad is in hell because he took his life.”
What cruelty in the name of Christianity! Suicide may be a sin, but it is not the unpardonable sin. The only unforgivable sin is to reject Christ. Remember this glorious assurance from Paul: “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love” (Rom. 8:38).
Nothing, nothing, nothing can ever separate us from God’s love.
Nothing, nothing, nothing can ever separate us from God’s love.
If you’re like me and you struggle with suicidal thoughts, or if you self-harm in any way, I invite you to join me in a prayer. Copy this onto a card or take a screenshot with your phone so that you have this at hand when the darkness strikes. Because you are not alone. When the darkness hits, you may feel alone, abandoned, and afraid. I know what despair tastes like, and I know the lie that says it would be better for everyone if you were no longer here. It sounds true, but it comes from the pit of hell. We stand together and declare in Jesus’ name that we will live to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
Lord Jesus Christ,
I am broken but You died so that I might find healing.
You were rejected so that I could be fully accepted.
I choose life now in Your powerful name.
I am Your well-loved child on the days when I feel it and on the days when I don’t.
I refuse to listen to the lies of the enemy anymore, and I confess with my mouth that in Jesus’ name, I will live!
Amen.
Amen, my friend.
We’ve not been promised a life of ease. Instead, Jesus assured us of something very different. In the gospel of John, Jesus says, “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world” (16:33).
The “all this” that Jesus is speaking about are the trials and tribulations the disciples would experience. In the preceding chapters of John, Jesus told the disciples that persecution was coming, and in fact, there would come a time when those who persecuted and executed them would think they were doing it for God. Even still, He assured them that they could have peace in the darkness of the world because He’d overcome it. In a few sentences, Christ de-mythicized what it meant to follow Him on this earth. Things would be hard and confusing, but the ultimate battle had already been won. And Jesus walked this same road as He endured His own suffering for the sake of the world.
Every note in Christ’s story is a melody we’re invited to join. His wounds became scars that purchased our healing. Recall these words from the prophet Isaiah:
Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed. (53:4–5 NIV)
The truth of Isaiah 53 is layered. This much is clear, though: Christ took on the punishment for all the sin of the world so that when you and I receive Him, we have peace with God. The wounds He bore healed the chasm that existed between us and a holy God. But I believe that there’s more. He suffered in every way that we suffer. Death, life, betrayal, abandonment, and excruciating pain. Jesus didn’t hide the hard bits from us, so we get to see it all. That’s not by accident. He shared His story and His agony with us, His family of faith. And when we share how His story has brought us life, we bear witness to a world that so desperately needs healing.
As a follower of Jesus, there is power in your story when you don’t hide it. Your authority lies in your scars. I can’t speak to things I’ve never struggled with; I can only confess my story, invite Christ into it, then invite you into it too. And you can do the same.
Our stories are different. Perhaps you’re struggling with the disappointment of a marriage that’s not all you hoped and dreamed it would be.
Maybe you struggle with someone at work or church or in your family. Perhaps it’s your mother-in-law. Maybe it feels as if someone has ruined your perfect place.
Maybe you just don’t like living in your own skin. You compare yourself to other women, and as far as you’re concerned, you don’t measure up.
It could be your children. Perhaps you’ve prayed for children, and month after month your prayers seem to bounce back off the ceiling.
When you lose your health it’s hard not to lose your hope. Getting older presents its own challenges when you can’t do the things you once could.
No matter your circumstances, here’s the truth: You have a story, and that story has its own peculiar mess. You can confess that story to Christ and let go. You can let Him start a work of healing, even now, right in the middle of your mess. You can also confess your story to your sisters; you can let them know they are not alone. The truth is, I need to hear your story, and other women need to hear your story. In the sacrament of sharing we feel less alone, and we create safe spaces for others to say “me too.” Our example makes it safe for them to bring their stories of pain to Christ for healing. In the sacrament of sharing, we also come to understand how loved and accepted we are by Christ, and by the safe sisters God has provided for us. Together we find strength for this beautiful, broken life.
In bringing our shame and fear to the stronghold of the Lord, we mimic the path of Jesus. And just like Jesus, as we overcome our shame and fear, as Christ works resurrection in our lives, we become beacons of hope. Don’t you want to live this kind of life?
This, I suppose, is my closing prayer. I hope to live a life so open to Christ that He knows my every secret and shame. I hope, too, that I become like the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, who went into the world and declared to her townspeople, “Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did!” (v. 29).
Though her brokenness was completely known by Jesus, she felt His complete love and acceptance. And that love and acceptance encouraged her to build a bridge for others to find Christ. That’s not just her story; it’s ours as well. When we bring our secret shame to Christ for healing, when we experience His love and acceptance, we want nothing more than to bring others into this same experience. And when the world sees person after person stepping into the healing presence of Christ, they want to follow suit.
This kind of confessional living is not a Sunday-morning or Wednesday-night thing. It’s a 24/7, right-in-the-middle-of-your-mess kind of calling. It’s a calling to let people know this glorious, riotous message:
The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned. (Isa. 9:2 NIV)
I believe one of the greatest miracles of all is that when we live this open, transparent, beautifully broken life, we find true strength in finally understanding who we have always been: well-loved daughters of our Father God.
Reflection
When Christian was a little boy and he was finally tucked up in bed at night after prayers and stories, I would walk to the bedroom door, stop, turn, and ask him this question: “Which boy does Mommy love?” He would put his little hand on his chubby cheek and with a big grin say, “This boy.”
He said it with absolute conviction because he knew it was true. He was and is a well-loved boy.
That’s what I want for you. I have prayed and wept over this book. I so want you to know in the deepest part of who you are that you are never called to be perfect. Rather, you are perfectly loved.
In 2017 we celebrate the five hundredth anniversary of Martin Luther posting his “Ninety-Five Theses” on the church door in Wittenberg, Germany. This was the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. For years believers had struggled to keep the law, to get it all right. Luther himself was known to spend hour after hour trying to think up any little forgotten sin, but no matter how often he confessed, he found no comfort. One day as he was studying the book of Romans he had what he called a lightning bolt of inspiration. Luther’s revolutionary message was that sinners are justified by grace through faith, not by getting everything right. The message of grace transformed him. It should. It’s the best news of all.
You are loved.
You are accepted.
You are invited to be your real, authentic, quirky self.
That kind of love changes how we see the mess. The mess is temporary, but the love will get us all the way home.
I have one final request. Each time you catch your reflection in a mirror, a store window, or even a puddle, would you ask yourself this question?
“Which girl does Jesus love?”
Then put your hand on your lovely cheek and say with confidence, “This girl.”
That’s the scarlet ribbon that runs through this book. God’s love is hope and life. It’s confession and prayer and silence and gratitude. It’s telling the truth and exposing the secrets. It’s being known and coming into community. It’s life! It’s saying out loud, “I am not alone. I am loved, and I am strong.”