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Brian Niece on Where is God in Brokenness?
Life has been a whirlwind of late. Financial strains, life circumstance, not feeling in control of it all (that last one is hard for me to deal with).Last week, the Nieces were in Nashville, TN visiting family and friends. I was looking forward to a fun time of catching up with folks from my old hometown. Yet it seemed that sadness pervaded.
We stayed with some very good friends who just a few months ago lost their baby an hour after he was born. Several late-night talks with them were difficult and sad and heart-wrenching.
We had some extended family news come our way that shook life circumstances for Heather’s side of the family.
A good family friend, mentor, and church leader at my old stomping grounds unexpectedly took his own life.
All of this during our “vacation.”
I have been experiencing a lot of sadness, brokenness, doubting, and feelings of helplessness of late.
Yet here’s what I’m learning … God has a way of weaving beauty out of brokenness and despair.
I’m not one of those who blames God for everything. I mean, if God really controlled everything with the way the word is today, that’s not a God I could worship, much less serve. No, it seems that scripture and experience tells us that evil just happens. Yet in the midst of evil, God longs to be in relationship with his creation. And if we let him, God will create something surprising and wonderful out of the shards of sadness, grief, despair, and hopelessness that invade our lives from time to time.
For instance, with the happenings I mentioned above … We got to spend quality time with some best friends during their dark days of anger and despair. We got to hug and be present and just listen. All in all experiencing a deeper level of friendship … and they did too.
We see my wife’s family pulling together with others in their faith community to truly seek God’s leading in their situation.
We were able to be with and comfort the family of our friend. We remembered his actions of love and compassion throughout his life. We saw his young grandson turn to God’s story in the days that followed in order to make sense of the situation.
God is weaving something beautiful, even when all seems lost. God is faithful to love us and care for us, even when we feel abandoned. God is relentless in his activity to create wonder and hope, even when we feel like he has nothing to work with.
This is the God I worship. This is the God I serve. This is the God I’m anticipating will surprise me again soon in wonderful ways.
SO TELL ME SOMETHING:
How is God taking your brokenness and making something surprising and wonderful out of it?
——
Brian Niece
www.brianniece.com
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Category: Faith, Friends, Triune God 2 comments »
May 14th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Dear Brian,
You may not remember me immediately; this is Matthew Carte. I attended a couple of grad classes with you at TNU shortly before accepting my first pastoral assignment.
I stumbled upon your web page through the Emergent Nazarenes Blogpage. I regret to hear of your travail through the way of brokenness, though it befalls all of us at various point in our journeys. I also was saddened to hear of this tragedy in your old stomping grounds.
Death has visited my congregation on two occasions in the past 2 months; both unexpectedly, premature, and tragic. This was preceded in the last 6 months by 3 married couples separating or divorcing for various reasons. All of this during my first year in my second pastoral assignment.
Oddly enough, it was during this season of familial distresses that my DS would eventually ask me, one on one, at a District Event(with minimal foreknowledge of what I was experiencing), “Matthew, how have you witnessed the footprints of Jesus this week in ministry?” To which I responded to this effect, “I believe that I have been reminded that the footprints of Jesus are manifested even in the midst of life’s chaos”.
Though I concede that the discourses of Theodicy are purely Modernistic and inherently problematic, I still find my humanity (and perhaps traces of embedded Modernity) causing me to nevertheless ask, “Why?” at various times.
Perhaps it is best to remember during our “brokenness” that it is the Son who willingly surrenders His Body to the powerful banality of evil, in order to become “broken”, as an act of obedience to the Father in and through the Spirit. However, one must not forget that it is the overwhelmingly pervasive Triune love that the Father has for the Son that will effect the promise of eschatological resurrection in and through the Spirit also.
The interim space between Good Friday and Easter morning is the path that we travail presently in human history.
Grace and Peace,
Matthew Carte
July 14th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
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