March 2018 - Gina Brenna Butz

It’s Going to Be Okay

Post author:Gina B
Post published:March 29, 2018
Post category:grief hope trials

“It’s going to be okay.”

I recently told my husband that he can no longer say this to me when I am discouraged, anxious, or forecasting the demise of some aspect of my life (as I am apt to do at times).

I’ve always hated when people say, “It’s going to be okay.” I want to slap them.

“How do you know?” I wonder.

How, in the middle of this really stinky moment in my life can you offer this platitude? (Trust me, I’ve had it offered to me at really, really stinky moments).

But lately, I feel like God keeps telling me exactly that, “It’s going to be okay.”

Really, God? Is it really going to be okay? How can you say that? When I’m sitting here waiting to hear the news that could be life-changing, it doesn’t feel like it will be okay if it doesn’t turn out the way I hope. When we’re staring down disappointment, broken dreams, loss, shalom shattered, sometimes it doesn’t feel like it will ever be okay.

But He repeats: It’s going to be okay. Here’s how I know.

It’s going to be okay. Why?

This past week at church, we talked about Jesus raising Lazarus. When Lazarus falls ill, they send for Jesus by saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” I don’t send for people that way, but maybe I should, like, “Erik, the wife whom you love needs a foot massage.”

But that’s what defined their relationship. And just to be clear, John reiterates it in verse 5, “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” Ah, so it wasn’t just them thinking he loved them. He really did. Our speaker pointed out how important it was to preface the story this way because, in the middle of the not okay that was coming, it would be easy to doubt.

It’s easy for us too.

He loves us

It’s going to be okay because He loves us. That’s the anchor where we sink our souls when life doesn’t look the way we feel it should. The God who loves us more than life is in it.

So it’s going to be okay. But not just okay. It’s going to be good.

Oh, but not necessarily good in the way we think it should be good. And that’s the problem.

The problem is that my idea of good is so focused on my comfort and happiness, focused on tangible, temporal things. In my world, the news is always what I hoped it would be. Jesus shows up in my time and my ways.

He is good

But It’s going to be good because He is good, and His purposes toward us are for our good. He is focused on our character and sanctification, on intangible, eternal things. He shows up in His time and His ways, that are so much better than ours.

His good is so much bigger. It’s a good grounded in the deepest love we can imagine, always working on our behalf.

It’s good in the way that Jesus didn’t just save Lazarus from illness, he raised him from the dead. That’s a better story.

He’s writing a good story

And that’s what I also know. It’s going to be okay because God is a good author. He is a good storyteller. He is writing a good story for us. And the story ends well.

We won’t see them as good stories if we hold too tightly to our idea of good. In my version of life, disappointment, broken dreams, and loss are not part of the story. But what kind of story would it be if everything was perfect?

A boring story, that’s what. The best stories have conflict. They have twists and turns and nail biting, “What will happen?” moments. And God’s writing the best story for each of us.

The stories God writes are stories of redemption. You can’t have redemption if you don’t have shalom shattered. You can’t have resurrection without death.

This week is a holy reminder that it’s going to be okay. Easter demonstrates His love for us. It is a testimony to God working good on our behalf. The story is one of triumph over the greatest enemy. He made everything okay.

We say this Friday is good, but it didn’t feel good to the disciples. It felt like the end of all their hopes. Disappointment. Broken dreams. Loss. It didn’t feel like it was going to ever be okay.

They didn’t know Sunday was coming. But God knew.

He knew that it was all for love. It was the greatest story ever written. All for us.

So when I slip into bed and anxious thoughts nag at my brain, I call to mind instead His voice telling me, “It’s going to be okay.” As I think about our son heading off to college this summer, and all the unknowns that go with that, He whispers, “It’s going to be okay.” I sigh my latest dilemma to my husband, and I hear him catch himself before he says it, but I nod, and say, “You’re right. It’s going to be okay.”

When life feels like Friday, it’s going to be okay, because Sunday’s coming.

He loves us. Everything is working for our good. The story ends well. Maybe not today, or tomorrow. Maybe not until we see Him. But it’s going to be okay.

What to Do When It’s Hard

This Kind of Jesus

The Challenge to Rejoice and Weep With Others

Post author:Gina B
Post published:March 15, 2018
Post category:relationships

After Hurricane Irma last fall, as I scrolled through my Facebook feed, I saw people rejoicing that their power had returned after the storm. Some never lost it in the first place.

I wanted to be happy for them, but it was hard when we were staring down day 3 without it. Days after that, we still had friends without power. I’m guessing they struggled even more than we did.

Sometimes it’s hard to rejoice with those who rejoice.

In the course of just a few weeks, we saw devastation in Texas, the Caribbean, and Florida. People lost everything. Yet as I scanned comments on articles about the aftermath, my heart broke over remarks flinging judgment at choices made to stay or go. Contempt poured over people where instead empathy was needed. Rather than entering others’ pain, people stood at a distance and thanked God it wasn’t them.

Sometimes it’s hard to weep with those who weep.

Romans 12:15 says, “rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.” Both are challenging.

I used to think it was harder to weep with others, but lately, I see the challenge in celebrating as well.

Oh, it’s easy to do if I am in an unrelated situation, or I have already found my own happiness in a similar one. But when we share the same hunger, and you are fed while I am not, how do I enter in well? How do I set aside my lack to rejoice in your plenty?

There is the couple who longs for a child, watching their friends easily conceive. Consider single friends who watch as yet another friend gets married. Think of the one who is overlooked while a co-worker is elevated. My friend’s child succeeds but mine fails. He loses weight but you don’t.

How can we truly rejoice with others?

Rejoicing with others is a choice

The simple but hard answer is: it’s a choice we make. If we refuse to rejoice with others, we not only diminish their joy, we lose ours as well. Rejoicing when it’s challenging humbles us, reminding us not to hold tightly to the things of the world. When we do that, it’s a greater sacrifice of love.

But rejoicing with others does not mean we kill our own desires. In fact, we hold them steady. That requires us to do something else: allowing ourselves to mourn what we lack.

Weeping with others begins with ourselves

Rather than minimizing, ignoring, spiritualizing, or pouring contempt on our own pain, we enter it. We cannot weep with others if we do not weep for ourselves.

Oh, I know, that sounds scary, wrong even. We’re afraid we’ll get lost in the emotion, that we’re not exhibiting faith.

But when we acknowledge our own unmet desires, God meets us in them. Then, we receive His compassion and comfort. The more we allow ourselves to weep over our own pain, the greater our capacity to weep with others in theirs.

Rejoicing or weeping: either option requires that we hold someone’s pain-our own or someone else’s. That’s why it’s so hard to do.

We must be uncomfortable in order to be connected.

But when we are connected in this way, it is powerful and life-giving. That is why we are asked to do it in scripture, and why we must strive to do it well.

What’s harder for you? To rejoice with others when you are struggling? Or to weep with others, when they’re the ones experiencing trials?

Open the Door to Others

Being Human

Learning to Walk (at an Unhurried Pace)

Post author:Gina B
Post published:March 1, 2018
Post category:grace rest

I shopped at Costco recently, and I realized, “I’m casually browsing.”

I don’t remember the last time I casually browsed anywhere. Most of my shopping expeditions are like ninja missions, “You have eight minutes. GO!”

This is one of the by-products of reclaiming my life.

It began a few months ago when I made the decision to step out of one of my roles at work. It was a tough choice, but one made from a place of humility: I was simply doing too much.

I felt called to slow my life to a walking pace.

In the months since it feels like my soul suddenly has space to breathe. You know that feeling after a big meal when you go switch into your elastic waistband pants? That feeling.

I’m finding margin in my life again. It feels good, for the most part. But it’s not without its challenges.

See, I’m used to running through life. So this invitation to walk, while inviting, is foreign. Walking is easier, and more sustainable, but I am not very good at it.

I know how to run. During my brief stint as an actual runner, I remember the challenge of faster, farther. No matter how hard a run was, the minute I finished my first thought was, “I bet tomorrow I could improve.”

It’s addictive, that kind of living.

Faster. Farther. More. Better. Longer. Squeezing every ounce of life out of every day, pushing the edges of our capacity, filling the margins until there’s no white space. After a while, we don’t know what it looks like not to run.

So in this process of learning to slow down, I’m finding I need to wrestle with two parts of me: my body, and my mind.

My body simply isn’t accustomed to breathing space. Just because your body slows down it doesn’t mean your heart rate does. In other words, just because you make space on the outside doesn’t mean your heart and soul know how to be still on the inside.

In this slower pace, I’m aware of how amped up my body can get. What used to feel like energy I realize now was anxiety, my body gearing up for a fight. I’m relearning how to breathe regularly, to notice when my body tenses involuntarily. Yoga helps.

And then there’s the mental battle. I find myself thinking, “But I could do more. Look! Open space in my schedule. I should fill it.”

It’s all fueled by deeper voices.

Some of those voices say, “See? I knew you couldn’t hack it. You’re just average.” Others say, “But people need you.” And still others, “They’ll be so disappointed.” And the worst for me, “Lazy bum.” The voices whisper that running is better. Faster. Farther. More.

The voices are wrong.

I recently read Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist, which in many ways gave me the courage to move this direction. In it, she says, “I’m going to find a new way of living that allows for rest, as much as I need, not just enough to get me through without tears, but enough to feel alive and whole, grounded and gracious.”

This is what I hope walking through life will do for me-I will feel wholly alive, grounded and gracious.

I want to walk at a pace that allows me to keep time with the slowest person in my life. Lingering with, resting alongside, listening to, and seeing others. I have a suspicion that the more I do, the more grace I will give the person inside me who needs to be slow, weak, needy.

Walking helps me love.

It’s hard to love well when we’re running through life. I might wave as I pass you by, but I can’t be fully present. My hope is that as I rest, so can you. As I live in the space God has given me, not striving ahead or pushing the edges, I hope my life gives freedom to others to do the same.

I’m not there yet. Living an unhurried life is a battle in this world. But I’m encouraged by the ways I already feel more available and present for the people and passions that hold my heart.

So feel free to ask me how my walking is going, or pull me aside when you see my pace start to pick up too much. It’s a journey. I’d love for you to join me.

Warning: Don’t Forget to Breathe

Keeping a Sabbath Heart

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