Let me tell you three stories: one dated 44 years ago, one five years ago, one just two weeks ago.
Robin and I were back in New Zealand for our first furlough; speaking engagements was part of that furlough year. One weekday morning, I stood before my first women’s group. I came to them disappointed and disillusioned with missionary life and ministry; my need was to be transparent and credible in what I shared. I talked about real life…the problems that challenged my call. At the end of that ‘talk’, a matriarch stood up as tall and straight as she could be and said: “There are no problems, only victories!” The year – 1974.
Many years later, Robin and I ministered to staff and pastors of a thriving national church in Cambodia. As we met one-on-one, we asked them: “What is your joy and your pain in ministry?” The joy part was easy for them; their faces lit up as they told story after story of God moving and blessing and redeeming. BUT the pain part was difficult…not because they had none but because they, too, thought that “there are no problems, only victory” in God’s work. To admit to pain seemed to undermine that victory. When we gave them permission to be honest, the floodgates opened wide! The year – 2013.
Two weeks ago, Robin and I held the annual Pastoral Care Retreat for the International Workers of the Alliance Spain field. Our aim in the retreat was that these faithful workers feel cared for; with that in mind, we allowed much time for sharing and praying. Robin and I were moved by their honesty and vulnerability. It was not surprising that most of their sharing centered on woundedness of heart, struggle of soul and perplexity of circumstance.
I’ve lived long enough in Christian life and ministry to see progression in my thinking on this matter of life’s joy and pain.
In my earlier years, the Christian life was all about joy: I had been redeemed, I had purpose, I had a ‘comfort Spot’, I had hope. (I also had a darker reality beneath my surface that I denied.)
As I journeyed on, I came to grips at some point that life is made up of: highs/lows, joy/pain, mountains/valleys, trials/triumphs. Sometimes the contrast is seasonal: a season of one and then a season of the other. Sometimes, they walked hand-in-hand in the same season. While I acknowledged the negative season as part of the Christian experience, there was this subconscious notion that it was an aberration, an abnormality…that one day it would go away and I could go on my way rejoicing once again in the goodness of God.
Somewhere in the longevity of this Christian journey, I’ve come to a new place of understanding: sunshine and shadow is a combo…designed in its combo-form to manifest and magnify God’s greatness; both are required.
There’s a lot I don’t understand about that…a lot of theological questions that challenge that…a lot of ‘me’ that resists that; but when I surrender to that reality, there are a couple things that happen:
· I begin to understand something the psalmist said:
“Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You.” Psalm 139:12
· I begin to see how shadows manifest and magnify the greatness of God: sometimes He steps into the shadow and changes it completely; sometimes He is so sufficient that I’m able to live with the shadow; sometimes He exposes ‘me’ through the shadow, giving me opportunity to grow, mature, change.
Seeing shadows in this light makes me realize that perhaps that matriarch was right after all: there are no problems, only victory…if God is manifested and magnified by the shadow. Beyond the shadow is the sunlight of God’s love and care; and at the end of the day, our hope in our shadow is experiencing the goodness of God. Now that’s victory!
Sunshine and shadow. Wherever you are, see God!
Marcia
