December 2019 - Gina Brenna Butz

He Knows Your Hard

Post author:Gina B
Post published:December 19, 2019
Post category:Uncategorized

Do you ever have one of those moments when you think, “No one understands what I’m going through”?

That sentiment isn’t reserved for antsy teenagers or Enneagrams 4s. At some point, each of us walks through something that feels isolating and foreign to others.

Maybe it’s a particular illness (hello, dizziness that fits in no defined categories). Maybe no one understands your take on the world. Or you’re walking through divorce surrounded by couples. Maybe depression threatens to suck you under. It could be a parenting struggle no one else you know has.

The enemy loves it when we believe that no one understands. It keeps our eyes downward. It keeps us isolated.

But this season reminds us that it’s simply not true. We are never alone.

Everything that threatens to isolate us is an invitation instead to sit with Emmanuel. Share on X

“Jesus has journeyed to the far reaches of loneliness. In his broken body he has carried your sins and mine, every separation and loss, every heart broken, every wound of the spirit that refuses to close, all the riven experiences of men, women and children across the bands of time.” Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

Emmanuel, God with Us

Jesus is our Emmanuel-God with us. God with us in every sense of the word-not just physically, but in our experiences, our emotions, our humanity. There is nothing we go through where He is not fully engaged, feeling it with us. His willingness to identify with us in His lifetime means there is nothing in our life that He cannot and will not touch.

I know. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like enough. Just this week, as I contemplated the challenges of launching my book, I thought, “I know God is with me, but I still want ‘Jesus with skin on’ as they say.” Graciously, He gives that to us sometimes as well.

But in the places where we don’t feel it, let’s find comfort in this: He knows. What we’re going through is intimately known by God. We are not alone.

One of my first years out of college, when I was new in full-time ministry and hadn’t a clue what I was doing, it was hard. Jesus met me, alone in my dark little basement room, reminding me of this truth that He knows.

I wrote a lot of poetry back then, some of which I have shared here. This is the poem I wrote during that time:

HARD

My soul longs for one
one who knows my “hard.”
a longing not out of self-pity or doubt
but from an emptiness aching to be filled
with understanding.

Jesus, Lover of my soul
let me to your bosom fly
There to hear your heart
beat in sympathy with mine,
and, “I know, I know your hard”
quenching my inmost being.

As we experience Advent, let this truth reverberate in our hearts: He knows, He knows, He knows. However hard it is, He is closer than a heartbeat. Let that breath life into you this season.

Do You Know What You’re Worth?

Why Christmas Reminds Me to Hope in God

Not Alone Because of Christmas

Vulnerability on Display

Post author:Gina B
Post published:December 5, 2019
Post category:courage identity

A common response I get after a public speaking engagement is, “I so appreciate your vulnerability when you speak.”

I don’t want to contradict them at the moment, so I don’t, but the truth is, I’m generally not vulnerable when I speak.

I’m transparent.

There’s a big difference.

For a long time, I thought I was being vulnerable by sharing personal stories, particularly stories of things I’ve struggled with, in front of others.

But I generally share in the past tense. Like, “here’s something I used to struggle with” or “let me tell you about a time I failed and how God used it.”

That’s not vulnerability. It’s transparency.

Vulnerability vs Transparency

Here’s the difference:

As my friend Iris puts it well, transparency is putting your junk in a window on display for others to see. Yes, it might be awkward, but you get to choose what they see and what they don’t.

You can choose that which has healed over, or is healing over. You can choose that which no longer evokes shame (if it ever did). What others see is completely within your control.

Vulnerability is inviting people into the back room to see what’s still tender. Back there lie the things that do trigger shame. The wounds that are still open. That which you may fear bringing into the light. Sometimes things you don’t even realize are there.

Transparency is letting people see the scars. Vulnerability is letting people close enough that they might touch the wounds. Share on X

Being transparent is good-we need people to see how we are growing, how we have grown. It invites them to do the same. When God brings us through something difficult and we share it with others, it ministers to them.

Not everyone has earned the right to come into the back room to see what is deepest in us. We aren’t meant to show all that to the world. So no, I’m not particularly vulnerable when I speak, by intention. Vulnerability is meant for safe spaces and safe people.

Choosing Vulnerability and Transparency

But that doesn’t mean we get a pass on sharing vulnerably with others. We’re all called to go beyond transparency with some people, or at least someone. We need God’s wisdom and guidance (and a good bit of courage) to know who our safe people are. And when we figure out who they are, we need to bravely invite them into those back room places.

Chances are, some of the stories that we are transparent about now were once things that felt very vulnerable. Because we shared them with safe people first, they can be brought to a place where we share them with others. Healing has happened. The more we choose vulnerability, the more we are able to be transparent about the wounds that have healed.

There’s a place for transparency. And there’s a place for vulnerability. Not everyone has earned the right to see all of us, but everyone needs to see some of it.

The Illusion of Having It All Together

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