Unwasted Pain
Join us on a thought-provoking journey as we delve into the depths of human experience and explore the intricacies of unwasted pain. In our podcast, "Unwasted Pain," we tackle the universal yet often misunderstood topic of pain and provide insights, support, and guidance for those seeking to navigate the challenges it presents.
Unwasted Pain
The Unseen Blessing of Forgiveness
Can you imagine blessing those who have caused you deep pain? It's a challenging concept, isn't it? Yet, we found that this is a critical component of healing. We share our personal struggles and the profound impact of blessing our offenders, leading to the experience of God's protection and favor. It's not easy, but it's a step forward that we must dare to take.
But what do you do when healing seems to take forever? When waiting seems endless? We know that feeling, and we're here to tell you - don't lose hope. We discuss the importance of staying active, finding strength in the waiting seasons, and strategies to keep motivated. Learn how to redefine what a good day looks like, and the crucial role of a strong support system. Through it all, remember: don't give up, even when it seems like there's no light at the end of the tunnel. In your lowest season, sow good things, and watch God fulfill his promise of the law of the harvest.
Hey everyone, welcome to Unwasted Pain. I'm here with Chris Conlee. I'm Karin Conlee and we're so glad to have you back. Hope that you've been along this journey with us, as we are really in the early stages of this podcast. There's so many things ahead in our hearts and minds that I know, chris, that you would like to have this podcast serve as a resource and an encouragement to people.
Speaker 1:But we're kind of starting it out a little bit, walking through some different steps of our own journey and kind of that story, just because God taught us a lot through our wilderness experience and we would love for you to learn from our mistakes and learn from the ways that God taught us and hopefully, whatever season you're going through, whether it's a great one or it's a challenging one, that these truths will really help you. And so the last time that we were here together, we were talking about just a very powerful experience that we had with a counselor. We did some intensive counseling in Ben, oregon, at kind of the beginning of our season away from Memphis, and in our last episode describe just how powerful that was and just the level of healing that took place. And, chris, I know you talked about like there was something that transpired then that allowed you to forgive and just took this weight off of you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's where I would say it's just so important for us to remember in our journey with God that the most significant lessons in life aren't necessarily learned like in a classroom setting. It's not just all of a sudden something clicked intellectually and I was able to say, oh well, the scripture says to forgive and then you can be healed. It's something that you have to go from that intellectual to the relational, and then in that relational part is where the transformation typically comes in. And I think what we described last time was God literally gave me a vision of Jesus himself pulling arrows out of my heart, where I was like bleeding to death, I was wounded, I was crawling across a battlefield, but then, in addition to that, he invited my dad and my brother onto the scene.
Speaker 2:Sounds like pretty crazy stuff, but it was like a movie, and I would just encourage you, like, if you've never experienced something like that, god is God and he can do anything he wants, and I am grateful that he will use such vivid imagery. And it was almost like a dream, but I was awake, kind of thing, and yet in doing so, it was like physical surgery was being done on my heart, but it was at a spiritual level and I do believe there was just this weight removed off of me and there was a physical reaction to the spiritual and there was a level of forgiveness that was beyond my intellectual ability and, honestly, even beyond what my heart, like my heart, could intellectually agree. Yes, this is something we should do, but it was beyond what my heart would want to do.
Speaker 1:So, chris, I know that there's a lot of things that we had taught before on forgiveness, but then when you live it out, those truths just go deep, and so there's things that you realize, maybe some misperceptions of what forgiveness is and what forgiveness isn't, and I want you to elaborate on those. But something that you just said, I think, before we get to that, you talked about just God being invited into that and seeing how God felt, and I just feel like in so many situations, it doesn't matter what the source of pain is that the first lie that the enemy wants to tell you is that God doesn't care, or that God isn't there, or something that is misrepresenting who our Heavenly Father is. Yeah, if.
Speaker 2:God cared, he wouldn't have let this happen to you, you know. And if God cared, then why didn't he protect you? And if God cared, why didn't he stop this? And there's legitimacy to some of those questions. It's not that they're bad questions. It's just that the enemy will spend those, manipulate those and cause us to look at those questions through the lens, as if God isn't good, as if God isn't sovereign, as if God isn't in control and as if God doesn't have a redemptive purpose, whereas the truth is, god did give free choice in this world and we oftentimes, sometimes things happen to us regardless of our choice, that we can't control, that are not His intended will, and there's times we make choices that are against His will and that we suffer through the consequences. But he's never content with suffering. He always wants to heal and remove suffering and bring us back into a place of actually flourishing.
Speaker 1:And I would just say you know again, some of this is foreign territory for most people, but whether it's you alone asking the Lord, you know how did you feel about this, where were you? Or whether it's getting somebody that can help facilitate that type of opportunity, I think there's something that is very healing in that, in knowing that when your heart breaks, god's heart breaks, and that there's just something in that that brings a peace as you're going through a trial. So I just maybe, just for whatever that's worth, if that's something in your pain or in your past that you've never done and never had an opportunity to really just experience and ask the Lord, like, how did you feel about that?
Speaker 2:That that's, I think, a piece of this, yeah because you know you have this moment where you experience healing and then you come back home and you know life keeps going and in many regards, just like someone who has a physical surgery, there's a recovery process after the surgery that's needed to fully heal. And so when you come back home into you know just the complexities of whatever your situation is. Things don't always move as fast as you want them to move and even though there was this initial event of healing, there's some follow up work to really make sure that you kind of get everything out of your system. You truly take off the old, you put on the new. And so, before we tell more of the story of our kind of 14 months in Atlanta and you know just some of the journey, you know telling the story of the journey and what's the next season looked like.
Speaker 2:I do want to just kind of turn on the teacher hat for just a second, because I think there's a lot of misunderstanding, misperceptions about forgiveness, and so for just a moment let's walk through for a second. First, what forgiveness is not, before we talk about what forgiveness is, and I won't spend too much time, but I think just with some of these, with just a little bit of description. It can really help some people not be resistant to forgiveness. Most people, when they're hurt, they know they need to forgive, but yet they don't want to forgive and they're a little bit resistant to it, and here's some reasons why. Okay, so people are.
Speaker 2:I don't know who originally said this, but probably the most frequent quote about forgiveness but also is probably a very inaccurate quote is you just need to forgive and forget, and that word for get is not helpful.
Speaker 2:The word forget is actually a bit offensive because it feels like it minimizes my pain and it minimizes what happened to me, and there are certain events that happen in life that, honestly, it's probably impossible to forget, and I don't know that you're intended to forget it, and so I would say that the way God would rather us look at this is that forgiveness is not about forgetting Forgiveness.
Speaker 2:More importantly, it's about how you remember, and then you either remember from a place of healing or from a place of hurt, and so please, whatever you do, don't think you've got to forget, because it could be something incredibly vulnerable, something incredibly painful, something that is such a strong image of what happened to you that I don't know that you can erase it from your mind, but what you can do is you can actually deal with it and you can heal from it in such a way that you don't remember it in all the detail from the place of hurt or from the place of devastation or trauma or even victim. In some ways, you begin to remember the event differently because you remember the healing and then, when you remember the healing, you're not focused on the hurt.
Speaker 1:So you're right, forgive and forget is probably the biggest pitfall for people. Of that. That's just not accurate. There's the people that go through the motions that, like, they say I'm sorry, what do you do with the going through the motions part of something like that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so sometimes you just use the term I'm sorry, that it's almost like we make those synonymous I'm sorry, I forgive you, or we say I'm sorry in place of I forgive you. Forgiveness is more than I'm sorry. You know, yes, you can regret that you made a mistake or you made a choice or that somehow you intentionally or unintentionally hurt someone. But when we say I'm sorry like that, it's almost like we say it quickly, we want to run right by it and we really want to stay on the surface and we don't want to get into the depths of the issue, because we're afraid If we really get into the depths of this, you might have to take ownership of something and I might have to really deal with something at a level that I might have to confess something and I might have to go beyond I'm sorry to. How do I make this right?
Speaker 1:So, Chris, the other thing that I see that people really struggle with is this idea that if you forgive someone that you know now, you have to invite them back into your life or into your world. Of course, there's a thousand different circumstances that this applies to, and it's different depending on the size of the break in trust or the incident, those kinds of things. But that sense that forgiveness equals reconciling. What would you say to that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, forgiveness is something that potentially paves the way to some type of reconciliation and restoration, but there are actually events in life that the event is so traumatic, the damage is so severe, that it could actually be unhealthy to reconcile, and so what I would say is don't always equate forgiveness with reconciliation. If someone betrayed someone in a particular way or violated someone in a particular way, it is actually healthy to create a certain boundary and you can forgive for the sake, honestly, of cleansing your own heart and releasing them to God, but you don't have to carry the burden of. Does this mean I've got to reconcile with them? There are other times and this is especially true with family and I would hope it would be true more times than not with close friends is that you want the forgiveness to then pave the way to reconciliation so that relationship can be restored. And when it's done in a healthy way, that's where conflict is an opportunity to gain loyalty, that, when you handle it well, you can actually have a stronger relationship after the forgiveness than you did before.
Speaker 1:So, chris, maybe one of the other things you have here. We had some notes ignoring the hurt. What would you say to that person that just thinks I'm just gonna forget about it, I'm just gonna push it down and that means I've forgiven them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that's a type of compartmentalization and that may work for a period of time. But then there's these things that we all have heard about called triggers, and something happens and it triggers you and it kind of awakens the fact that you kind of stuff that and buried that down there a little bit. And so I don't know that God ever wants us to ignore hurt. I think he wants us to acknowledge the hurt. I think he wants us to confess the hurt. I think he wants us to bring the hurt to him so that instead of ignoring, God doesn't ignore the hurt. He wants to actually replace hurt with healing. And so sometimes, in that way, I just think it's important that we see beyond the initial pain, the initial hurt, because if we just ignore that, it kind of festers and it actually will manifest itself in some future problems.
Speaker 1:All right. So forgiveness, we know it's not forgive and forget, we know it's not stuffing it. We know it's not faking it, we know it's not all those things.
Speaker 2:It's not letting go of justice. There's another one that we because I think that one real quick just when it's something where someone has maybe been physically hurt, maybe been sexually abused we want people to pay and we think to forgive them is to minimize the sin. To forgive them means they don't have to pay. To forgive them means there's not any justice. No, you forgive them so that you can be healed, and then what you do is you entrust them to God as a God of justice, and let him discern what needs to be done.
Speaker 2:We aren't good judges. He's a perfect judge. He'll discern perfectly if they need a little bit of mercy with the justice, they need a little bit of grace with the justice, but he will measure those things in ways that we can't to accomplish his purpose.
Speaker 1:So we've talked about the things that forgiveness is not. There's a lot of important things about what forgiveness is. I know one of the things that you've talked about is that forgiveness is going first and describe that Like. What does that feel like and look like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, anytime you hear a story of someone that they're retelling the story of, something went wrong and they got a little bit of edge to their voice and the story's being told with a little bit of anger and a little bit of justice and things like that.
Speaker 2:And maybe they're even telling the story about, maybe they want an argument and stuff like that, and then they're justified because this person never asked for forgiveness, this person never did something, and you're always waiting on the other person to do something.
Speaker 2:And I would just say the scripture says listen, if you have alt against your brother, while you're there at the altar presenting your offering and you recognize or you remember the spirit of God brings this to your mind that you have alt against your brother, leave the altar, go to your brother first, be reconciled first, forgive first, do that kind of stuff, and then come back and present before the Lord. And so, as long as we're always waiting on someone else, in many regards, kind of in an indirect way, that really kind of just makes it look like, well, we know, we're right, they're wrong and therefore they carry the burden of wrong and they need to make it right Versus us, understanding that instead of just seeing the log in their eye, there might be a speck in my eye and what I've got to do is I've just got to lower the intensity level, I've got to have some humility and I've got to say, even if I'm right, the relational thing to do is to go to that person first, because I'd rather be right relationally than just be right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think a lot of times when we think about it on a human to human level, that's when our we get defensive or we get on offense. But I also think it goes back to okay, look vertically, this is, at the end of the day, you're accountable to the Lord and like, if Lord, if by in your standard, I did the right thing, that's what matters. It doesn't matter if they deserve it, it doesn't matter if they don't, but it does matter if I'm holding an offense. So what else would you say in the world of forgiveness? I know there's a lot of dynamics to this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, again, even if we understand kind of the why we are recipients of forgiveness is because, ultimately, in our relationship with God, we have missed the mark. The word sin just means miss the mark. We've all fallen short of the glory of God and sin, you know, in that way. We've all sinned, I should say, and fallen short of the glory of God. We've missed the mark in that way. Well, that creates offense, but what God does is he pays for the sin, all right, and then he forgives us based upon what he paid for. So in this way you can say forgiveness is saying you owe but I'll pay, all right.
Speaker 2:Yes, you did something that created offense, you did something that created a deficit, a debt, but I'm going to pay for it out of a combination of mercy and grace, and I'm going to forgive the debt. Yes, you owe, but I'm going to forgive. And so it's just for us to understand the very word. Forgiveness Says give in it. It's not this point system, it's not this justice system. It is you being gracious enough to Pay for something you didn't do so the other person could be released and forgiven.
Speaker 1:The other thing, I know it's. It's in that moment when you say you know, yes, you owe, but I'm gonna pay, you're also saying I'm not gonna seek revenge yeah, you know, I am not gonna get, even like I'm. I am giving up the, the right that I have. I could if I wanted to not that that's what the Lord would want, but but I am just I'm releasing that and I'm and and honestly that's also releasing all of the energy, wasted energy, that goes in trying to To do what actually is the Lord's role to do right, because in the flesh, in the anger, in the Intensity, the moment we want to hurt back and you hurt me and I want to hurt you for hurting me, and that's again when we've got to go back to and say no, no, no, that's not my role.
Speaker 2:I've got to trust God to deal with this person in the way that he deems best. And so I'm Releasing the decision to get revenge, I'm releasing the decision to get even, I'm releasing the decision to hurt you back. I'm letting go of vengeance because the scripture, the Lord says vengeance his, says the Lord.
Speaker 1:Okay, so also forgiveness in this context, it also frees you, yeah, in a lot of different ways. Talk to us about just some of the things that when you, when you decide and it is a decision that we, we get to make, we're not forced to make it it's an opportunity we can choose to forgive. But what kinds of freedoms are come with that decision?
Speaker 2:Yeah, when we give forgiveness, Our heart is no longer holding on to the offense, it's not holding on to the hurt, it's not holding on to anger, in a way that anger turns into different expressions of bitterness and in, you know, frustration and disappointment and all in avoidance and those kind of things that will happen. So it's just absolutely critical for us to remember that forgiveness it it removes the offense. Okay, now, it doesn't always remove the consequence. You know, there are times that we, we do something in, the consequence remains and we have to live through the consequence. That person has to live through the consequence, but we still forgive the offense and then we trust Over time somehow another God will redeem, restore In in, replace the consequence and bring us into a season of blessing.
Speaker 1:So, chris, I know in in our story that that act of forgiveness, that that choice to forgive, also initiated a healing process. It began a new process. And so for us, you know, we we had a Time where we had, we had just been intentional to say we've, we've got to look at this and we got to deal with it now, because we'd rather deal with it now. Then all of the unintended ways, we were gonna end up dealing with it later, and so we. So for us there was really a time set aside, and that was the time in Oregon, and a lot of things were initiated there. But then Then we head back, like you don't stay there forever. And so we head back into Normal whatever our new normal was and and talk a little bit about that transition of Okay, there's this moment in time, there's, there's forgiveness, release, there's healing, that occurs, but but then then there's the next day, and then there's the living in that forgiveness, even though it doesn't make everything magically better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the things God taught me when we were in Ben organ. That was in November of 2018, and as I got back home and I'm processing and I'm trying to, you know, figure out what's next. He put this, he formed this. You know principle in my mind that forgiveness is the first step to healing, but blessing is the first step to health. Now, honestly, I didn't really like that and it wasn't sometimes. Oh great, you know that's, I can't wait to do that. It just was like he just raised the bar go.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, right, you thought you thought you were done, right, right.
Speaker 2:I, you know I have forgiven you. You've received my forgiveness now you have forgiven them. But now here's the even greater step of grace in your life is I want you to go beyond forgiving to actually blessing these people in Praying good into their life. And so in our story there were.
Speaker 2:I Never believed the church betrayed us. I Believe there were about 10 people that you know honestly, all of us, at different times, allow the devil to deceive us, allow the lies to you know, distort our Perception of things or understanding of things. And and there were about 10 people who I felt like just Didn't believe the best, made a bad decision, underestimated the magnitude of the decision in betray us. And what I felt like the Spirit of God told me to do Was that you know the scripture says in Romans I believe it's chapter 12, verse 18 it says you know, as far as it's possible with me, be at peace with all men.
Speaker 2:And I had done some things to try to initiate some reconciliation meetings and they just never really materialized. And so I Felt like spirit led me to write each of these 10 individuals a letter and, yes, state the forgiveness, but honestly, then led me to Like, truly write out a prayer, a blessing for them, for their families, and, honestly, there's not one part of me wanted to do that and In that I didn't try to do that intellectually. I Tried to say okay, god, what do you want for these people? And let me try to write what you want. This is you praying, that you're giving me the words to pray to bless these people? Now, here's the danger you do something like that and then again, our humaneness, we want people to then reciprocate right, no, you have to do that, whether someone ever Really responds or not.
Speaker 2:You know five of those people I don't, I believe I really never got a response from, and there was other five that I just kind of got a single in response like thank you, but I still had to say no, it's not about the response, it's about what he asked me to do and I had to continue to bless and I Believe this is true and I hope I'm not making a mistake in this, but I believe Every time I've seen one of those ten people, whether just bump it into someone I have been the first. I went first to go, you know, and reconnect, shake their hand, restate forgiveness and restate want nothing but the best for them.
Speaker 1:I think there's something in that second step, almost if, for if forgiveness is the first step and black blessing is the step to health, there is something that to move from yes, I've forgiven you to Blessing that kind of tests the forgiveness like you, really you can't move forward.
Speaker 1:If that was an intellectual decision, you can't move forward. If you were just going through the motions, you're probably not gonna bless them and be able to get to that second step unless there was some some genuine Forgiveness that was extended and I so I think something in that process in and again, this has nothing to do with if the person had passed away, you can still do this, there is still. This is really about Are we gonna respond in a biblical, in the way that was modeled for us, in the way that we are taught as believers, to do what, what the scripture commands us to do, and so whether the other person reciprocates or not, whether they're alive or not, it it really doesn't matter. It's whether or not you want to experience the Protection and the blessing that that comes from that hard step right because you know you don't feel like blessing and so Blessings a choice.
Speaker 2:You choose to bless these people because, a, it's what God would do, and then God lives in us through the Holy Spirit and it's what God wants to do through us. But I'm just again being real and honest here. So after you do something like that, you, you now kind of go back to God. Okay, now bless me.
Speaker 2:All right and All right, I did what you told me and so now I'm ready for my blessing. And Our blessing Didn't come quickly, sure, and you know our season In Atlanta. Like I'm, I'm a person that typically is very decisive and there's really Nothing that kind of frustrates me more and, just, you know, puts me in a place of discontent.
Speaker 1:Two cars, Going side by side on the interstate and being indecisive nothing.
Speaker 2:Why in the world would anyone ever do that? And so it was a situation where that was in the month of December. So the calendar turns. You know it's January. We're in this new city, we're trying to be faithful with a little okay. God's given us some consulting opportunities During this season to try to, you know, still make a difference in being who we are and in doing kingdom-minded stuff in the midst of this, to be good stewards and to provide for ourselves and our family and things of that nature.
Speaker 2:But there was always this sense that that was temporary, that wasn't the long-term assignment, and so we kept trying to say God, you know what's next, where do you have us, where do you want us? And I remember I Think I mean this is ballpark accurate I think I had, you know, like a thousand different numbers in my phone of you know different ministry contacts, just that have been accumulated through the years, and I remember going through literally Texting every single person, following up with every single person with an email, seeing if there were any Opportunities, and then working with you know headhunters and things of that nature, and it was crickets, there was nothing. And so, like you're going, okay, wait, god, this whole situation Seems unfair to begin with. It should never happen. Now I'm trying to do the right thing. Where are you? And you know like, show up and Do something now. And I mean the days felt like weeks, you know, like a singular day seemed like it lasts forever. A week felt like a month and a month felt like a year, and you know there's no sense of progress.
Speaker 2:And so Waiting, like the scripture tells you time and time again to wait upon the Lord. But that is a hard thing to do and you Gotta find a way to not wait passively. Though we were in a season of waiting and we didn't want to be in a season of waiting, at least our waiting was active waiting, you know, in the sense that we were trying to do something. And honestly, there were some things in hindsight we were probably trying to do. That was just in our own initiative, in our own effort, but I think he'd rather us Be testing kind of the waters, so to speak. Then, just simply, you know, be in a place where we're almost Well Immobilized and and there's probably a better word for it than that but I think inactivity would have led to a greater battle with Depression. I think you and I had this rule If I had one bad day, kind of, please leave me alone, let me have a bad day. You know, don't like.
Speaker 1:Try to encourage me, you know if.
Speaker 2:I had a second bad day. Okay, Maybe you can try to encourage me a little bit, but I don't get out a little right and then like what would you do? You would always do this thing of like someone else's story.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I would say, you know? I mean, I know it's really bad, but I mean at least our children are healthy and at least we're healthy. And it could be worse.
Speaker 2:And I mean like you'd give me some story of maybe someone that maybe, it was sure, potentially worse, and I'll be like I don't care, I'm not helping like that right now I'm not in a point of comparison, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that is a good point. Do not do that, that the person that you're trying to encourage might not appreciate that at all.
Speaker 2:And so. But we had this rule that if I kind of entered into three bad days, kick me in the butt, you know, like no, I don't need to get stuck there. I need to get up, do something, believe something, be inspired. And I would say this this is different for different people, but I think it applies to everyone. I think different people need different measures of it. When you're struggling, when you don't have a sense of direction, when you don't know what's next, you don't know what's God's gonna provide, you still need inspiration. And so I would watch every type of documentary imaginable, you know, because just they were stories about people overcoming something. You know we would, whether it was going to church, whether it was going to a conference. And I mean, let me tell you, given our set of circumstances, having led a church for 20 years, 18 specifically it was hard to sit in the pews, it was hard to be absorbers, hard to be on the outside, but we went anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah you know you got to do some things anyway. We, you know it was hard to go to conferences because you used to. I'd go to a conference. All this excitement about what I'm gonna go and what I'm gonna implement and where we're gonna go next and we're gonna host our own conference, we're gonna do this and go do that, and then I'm going and I'm really in many ways experiencing Regret about all the things that have lost, but yet still, somewhat God's using someone to pour into me, there's something helping me to just believe a little bit again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think the other thing in terms of yes being, you know there were days that that you know we were there for 14 months and there were a lot of days that.
Speaker 1:And this was before COVID. So you know, post COVID, we we've had a season where we've all had to live how to, you know, learn how to sit and not be able to go and and things kind of on hold. But I think in either scenario, you start to have to redefine what, what makes a good day. And you know, for me I know it was like, okay, you know what, if I've, if I've spent time with the Lord, if I've exercised and if I, like I just made some, just like put the big rocks in, and you know, if I've done that and and honestly, learn to take it a day at a time, that if I were to think, oh my gosh, we're gonna be here for a whole year and and you're struggling and I'm trying to encourage you, but not too much, you know like it becomes that there's just okay, His mercies are new every morning. He's not gonna give you, he's not gonna give me a week worth of mercy on Monday and I can go okay, good, I've got enough. It's like no, it's a daily thing.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think what's important here is you and I Went through the process differently and had different ways that God healed us, but we still went through it together. And so I would just say, even if you're not married and you're going through a crisis, or If you are married maybe you've not had the best marriage or whatever you got to find a way to either unite and go through it together or You've got to, you know, run to some friends. You've got to ask for help, you've got to run the family. You just can't do this by yourself Because and and I will forever say God really used you. You have been honestly the hero of this story, but you had I don't know, there was, maybe it's something a part of your military background and family training and stuff. You had the ability to kind of, in a healthy way, compartmentalize and, okay, determine what a good day is and I mean you know our days. What, where would the restaurant? So how?
Speaker 1:did we go? We would go to Chipotle for lunch and chopped salad for dinner, and the next day we'd swap and somewhere in there, you know, as a treat go to fruitables you know place and and we go for a walk and those things.
Speaker 2:But, like I Mean it, just how much can you talk about something? You know you run out of things to talk about and and you, just you know You're circling, circling, circling. And the only thing that kept us going is, every single day we went to God's word, every single day we went to prayer and Every single day we saw someone, not every single day, but virtually figuratively. Every single day we would see someone call us, someone encourages, you know, someone give a prophetic word. There was Kind of raindrops of hope all along the way and that's who our God is Awaiting. Season can be a difficult season, but it's not a passive season, it's actually an active season. And just for a second here, just, I think this is so important.
Speaker 2:Psalm 274 says One thing I have asked of the Lord that I will seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. And this is where he says I made dwelling house like for us, the pain came from the house of the Lord, but you don't run from the house of the Lord, you've got to always run back to the Lord and back to God's people. Even though there was pain for us in the church, there was greater healing in the church than there was pain. And then Psalm 377 says be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Now, everything about my temperament would avoid that verse. Like the plague. It says fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way and honestly like you're like well. Why is that person doing well and why does this happen to that person? Why did this happen to us? It says over the man who carries out even devices. But it was only in being still before the Lord and waiting patiently that we found faith again, we found hope again. But then this one, isaiah 40, verse 31,.
Speaker 2:But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. And I can tell you there were time and time again that I didn't even know how to pray. That in Romans it talks about. Sometimes you pray with groans, you know you pray with things beyond words. And there were times I would honestly in my pray and just scream out to God and just like a verbal, guttural, just scream of just letting the pain that's inside you express itself verbally.
Speaker 2:And there would be times that it wouldn't be like just on my knees and be like, you know, I've got to get facedown. And there'd be times that, like it's like I've exhausted myself and then, in the complete emptiness, strength would emerge. And then it says the Lord shall renew their strength and they shall mount up with wings, like eagles. And I remember I would get from face down, I'd get on my knees, I'd stand up and I would feel an energy come about me where I'd begin to prayer walk, I'd begin to, you know, believe things with authority. And it says they shall mount up with their wings like eagles, and they shall run and not be weary and they shall walk and not be faint.
Speaker 2:And so I just want to encourage people, wherever you are in the waiting process. I'm not saying it's easy, I'm not saying it's going to be as short as you want it to be, but what I am saying is, in your waiting, if you won't be passive but you'll actually run to him, he will meet you in the waiting, he will answer you in the waiting and then he will, little by little, reveal what's next. And you can't take the next step of obedience without obeying the previous step of obedience. See, most of us want God to reveal what's next, and we haven't obeyed what was previously revealed to us. And so, in this way, waiting is kind of like the season with the farmer you know it's a sowing season and you're waiting for the harvest.
Speaker 1:Chris, a couple things that you said that I think may be appropriate, and then obviously lots of different circumstances out there. But I would say again, when crisis happens, you know you can't sleep, you're like just all of your basic things that you just everything kind of feels hard in those moments. But just very practical things of like, okay, I just need to be. You know, what can I do to exercise so I'm tired at night. What can I get us? You know, a sound machine, like what are the different things?
Speaker 1:To just practically try to take good care of your body. Like I, you know, even though we didn't have a lot going on, it was like, okay, I'm going to exercise today because I just I know that's good for my mind, I know it's good for my blood pressure, I know it's good so that I'm more tired when I lay down and go to sleep and hopefully I'll be able to fall asleep. So just really practical things. I think are can just in the midst of when you've lost someone. Again, there's times where you need rest and you just you know you need to watch your fluids and those kind of things, but there's other times where you know you just need to get out of the house. You just need to go outside, you just need to breathe the air outside and remember that there is life, even though everything might feel heavy to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I would say honestly, the practical things. You did a much better job than me and I believe those things, you know 100% would have been healthy for me. But the part that there was times you would pull me out of, you know just my reluctance to do those things and almost kind of pull me along with you. But I would also agree. There's just something about get outside and honestly get into the sunlight, get into you know God's beautiful nature, and there were even times that some people would say, oh, it's almost like you have a sabbatical. Nope, this was not a sabbatical.
Speaker 2:You know, like there was like I forget. You know, we I don't know how to say but we went on, you know, a vacation and like someone gave us a little bit of money just to try and it was the most miserable vacation. It didn't matter how pretty things were and all those kind of things. So like there's some of that. But you just got to push through, you just got to keep doing the right thing until your feelings follow. Most of the time, feelings follow obedience. A lot of times we kind of we put the burden of, oh, the feeling needs to lead us into obedience and sometimes it happens that's a beautiful thing, but most of the time feelings follow obedience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I would also say just again, there are a lot of times that people are going through a crisis, that they are alone, that you know, that is the reality of just depending on different circumstances. But to your point, and there are days that nobody called, there are days that we were disappointed, that, like man, you know. But between the Lord and also saying, okay, sometimes you need to learn how to ask for help and, yes, sometimes people are going to disappoint you. But also, sometimes people are just a rise to the occasion and amaze you and it's probably not the people that you thought that were going to be there with you, but there's. But the God, even in that, even if the people that love you the most don't know how to engage you in this particular season or for whatever reason, those relationships are a part of this to just try to A be willing to not pull yourself in so that if there is somebody there, let the Lord use them and engage with them.
Speaker 2:Well, in this I want to kind of maybe wrap up and close with this thought, because I think it really leads us into our next podcast. You know, people say all the time perception is reality and we're referring to this particular season, you know, kind of as a waiting season. But one of the things that we'll talk about in this next podcast is in that year 2019, you created this book, that you took my calendar and you documented all the places that God had sent us in that year and I remember I made like over 21 trips to California in that year alone.
Speaker 2:So like if you're not in the apartment, sad, you were at the Atlanta airport on your way to California, which was crazy, but so it's always important to gain perspective, because my perspective in that season is nothing's happening, but yet there was still a lot of activity that was paving the way for what was going to happen, and so you got to step out of things and gain that perspective. And so here's kind of a closing verse for people to always remember in their season of waiting, in their season of blessing, when you even don't want to bless and you're needing to bless other people before you experience your blessing, before you experience your harvest. Galatians 6, 9 says let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up in the enemy. Now some people might debate this, but I believe if you are a believer, if you are a child of God, ultimately he can't defeat you. So therefore he targets his greatest weapons and trying to just get you to quit.
Speaker 2:So I would say, whatever you do, do not give up. Do not give up, do not give up. And there is a weariness involved, but don't get into the weariness. And then the way that you don't give into the weariness is you believe that in due season you're going to reap the harvest, that you have a good God, who has promised the law of the harvest, that you will reap what you sow. And so in your lowest season, you got to sow some good things so that you reap good things. But when we get low, the enemy wants us to get negative and so bad things so that we reap bad things. But in your lowest season, trust the goodness of God. In your lowest season, trust the process of God, and then what you're going to do is you're going to sow the right things and then, in due season, you're going to reap harvest.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, I hope this has been an encouragement to you. We know sometimes that waiting season feels like forever, but I promise there is something biblically about seasons whatever season you're in that it will not last forever. There is a brighter day ahead, and we hope that these will be tools to help you in that and to help you help someone else. All of us have people around us that need us to be the hands and feet of Jesus when they are in times of trial, and so we hope that you will be that person, and we hope that unwaisted pain is helping you become even stronger.