SCOTT HENRY PHOTOGRAPHY took some pictures at our NUTCRACKER event in December. These are the ones we decided to buy downloads of. I think some of these are super fun!
When I choose an episode of Adam Young's podcast to listen to, it often takes me two solid listens to get the gist of what they are talking about and really digest it all. In the episode entitled: "No Cure for Being Human", Kate Bowler discusses her most recent NYTimes Best Seller: Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've Loved. And her most recent book is entitled:
I wasn't sure what to make about the titles of either of these books, but here is what I have learned over the last year:
LIFE SOMETIMES SUCKS!
THERE IS NO MAGIC FORMULA FOR IT TO NOT SUCK!
YOU NEED PEOPLE TO STAND ALONGSIDE YOU IN THE SUCK!
THERE CAN BE BEAUTY AMIDST THE SUCK!
And this is exactly what Kate is getting at in her book. Diagnosed with colon cancer in her 30's, Kate realized as she left the hospital, not sure how long she had to live, that what she wanted was a blueprint for how to live. Kate had already written a book on the history of the prosperity gospel. She had written a book on this which had dominated much of her 20's entitled: Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel.
The irony of Kate now released from the hospital desiring a blueprint for life is that the one thing the prosperity gospel does offer is a supposed blueprint. We crave this as humans. We want to know how we can live well. The prosperity gospel doesn't exist outside of Western America, and it tells you that if you do things the way they are supposed to be done, you will get the result that you want.
IT IS BULL CRAP. IT ISN'T TRUE.
Please don't read what I am writing and think that my faith has been altered whatsoever. I, honestly, have a better relationship with Jesus Christ than I have ever had in my whole life. But in the midst of that I have come to realize that THIS LIFE INCLUDES SUFFERING. Period. Full stop. That's it. It sucks sometimes. For no reason whatsoever.
When I dealt with infertility I searched for a reason. There had to be a reason. Because if there wasn't a reason, then I had done something wrong to cause this evil beast to latch itself to my body. I had to find PURPOSE IN THE PAIN.
But the truth is, there may not be purpose. You may just be John the Baptist and your head is suddenly on a platter. This may be the truth of it all.
And, that is OKAY! Because this Earth is not our home. Heaven is our home!
A blueprint, Kate explained in the podcast, prevents you from having to take your disappointments to God. Kate had been sold a vision of faith that looked and sounded a lot like certainty. People are full of cultural formulas for success in our faith.
"God has a plan."
"Just trust God ..."
We are told that faith or positivity are this glue that will make everything bearable. But what do you replace it with when you realize it doesn't work?
"Tumors budded and spread across my colon and liver without my consent and here I am. I feel a spark of horror, and each time I remember it, I come undone." NO CURE FOR BEING HUMAN
This is what happens to ALL of us. Someone dies. You lose your job. You are infertile. And suddenly the story we have told ourselves falls apart. But it is always something. Something happens and we come undone. Something will unravel us.
What if suddenly you can't say there will be enough for you? What if your dreams can't come true? What if you can no longer cherish your ambitions?
Whatever it is that causes you to come undone, you cannot prevent that day from coming. And even if it doesn't happen to you, it will happen to someone you love. And everything you thought you believed comes collapsing in a heap on the floor.
A pastor must go and talk to grieving parents of a child who has just died. And he finds himself saying to God: "Don't make me go out there and lie for you again." No math that we are aware of will make severe tragedy add up. The life of someone who has suffered greatly means that "their life is an invitation to you to engage reality in a deeper way."
Kate's cancer forced her to deal with some things inside of her heart that she needed to hold up to the light. What is the story here? Where is the wisdom? Put down the weights.
"Everybody pretends that you only die once, but that is not true. You can die to a thousand possible futures in the course of a stupid life."NO CURE FOR BEING HUMAN
Adam's podcast is about how trauma upends our stories. Trauma causes death. Multiple deaths. In the midst of that trauma we NEED people. Both Adam and Kate detail how important community is as we traverse the hard stuff. Physical touch is integral. When we are touched, we can suddenly feel human again.
When I was in the worst of my infertility treatments and preparing for IVF Transfer #4, I remember my doctor, Dr. Coddington, rubbing my arm. It made me feel like a human! It made me feel he cared! It was truly one of the tenderest gestures I have ever recalled feeling.
Bucket lists. Fantasy retirement stories. We only get ONE chance at life and it very well may be determined by things they weren't aren't choosing. How unfair is THAT?
This goes against the prosperity gospel. And it goes against the American/Western society version of life which tells us that You can do anything! I mean our culture says we just need to work hard. Hustle. Even telling women they are in charge of family planning and fertility. We are told that life is what we make of it.
And then it isn't.
We are one second away from the house of cards just simply crumbling down.
Oh to be durable and not feel like life might end or be destroyed at anytime.
But the reality is ... it might!
We end up feeling like failure when the story we are told, doesn't hold. We honestly feel like we should be able to conquer everything. Our inner world. Our outer world. EVERYTHING!
Why do you think so many people in America believe we need to conquer our own inner world? For people with trauma, this will be impossible. You will never arrive.
Why do some people make it and some people don't? We want a reason for this! The truth is, we, religiously believe that our mind is a thought machine. That's how we figure out who winners are. Winners can exhibit all the emotional pieces. Our minds are solvable and they work backwards into our bodies.
Choose Joy.
Get your attitude right.
Put your mind to it.
When you get cancer, you learn the life lessons, and you become a more spiritual personal, and you have a can-do attitude, and then everyone can refer to you as the person who has done it.
(That was facetious if you couldn't gather it.)
But Kate's books are saying this didn't happen that way for her. And instead of there being something wrong with her, there is something wrong with the cultural "norm" which is this is how is it supposed to be.
Why are there martyrs?
Why did nearly everyone who followed Christ died for the cause?
They suffered!
And yet somehow OUR Christian church (and our Western society outside of the church as well) believes there should be NO SUFFERING and if there are sufferings, something is wrong with YOU!
What formula are you failing to follow?!
The world is not fair. Getting cancer isn't fair. And it isn't HER FAULT for getting cancer. She did nothing wrong. Nothing spiritually will change the fact that she has cancer.
"We find it especially difficult to talk about anything chronic, meaning any kind of pain, emotional or physical that abides and lives with us constantly. The sustaining myth of the American Dream rests on a hardy "can do" spirit surmounting all obstacles, but not all problems can be overcome. So often we are defined by the troubles we live with rather than the things we conquer." NO CURE FOR BEING HUMAN
A crisis invites a lot of people in. There are a lot of people who have the ability to show up at that moment. It is because people love you that they are not able to understand the pain of what you are facing. It makes it very hard for people to live in that reality for a long period of time. They want your pain to end because it is painful for them to watch you in that pain.
I can remember a few choice people who sat with me in person or on the phone in the depths of my 2024 refinement. They listened to me sob as the depression and anxiety threatened to destroy me.
What a gift.
Kate said that she lost most people that were close to her as she transitioned from CRISIS to CHRONIC. No one wants to remain near someone who is dealing with the possibility of death all the time. It is hard to sit with people in their pain.
But you can. You just need to not try to fix it. JUST BE PRESENT WITH THE PEOPLE IN THE SUCK!
There is also another attitude people have that says, "You are not supposed to be that needy." You have blown up your own life and you have blown up the lives of the people around you. How dare you?
"When I finished sifting through all the clinical trial data, I had nothing to do but survive the feeling that some pain is for no reason at all. It became clearer than ever that life is not a series of choices. So often the experiences that define us are the ones that we didn't pick: cancer, betrayal, miscarriage, job loss, mental illness. So often the experiences that affect our stories so deeply are ones we did not pick. Life is not merely a series of choices." NO CURE FOR BEING HUMAN
When we go into labor, something is coming at the end.
But some of our pain might not really amount to anything. Pain may just be a waste.
Powerlessness.
Really?
Could it all be just because we live in a sinful world!?
YES!
In the midst of this hardness, never forget
WE
NEED
OTHERS!
"For people with trauma, if only we can find someone who will walk faithfully and kindly with us in the healing process, healing is possible. What is so painful for many people is that they can't find someone who will be with them in the thick of their pain." Adam Young
Are you being held by smart, kind, choice-empowering people? Are you yelling into the void knowing that someone is hearing you?
Hope is so tricky. If it is not certainty, than what is it?
Someday there won't be cancer and fear for our kids or parents who lose their memory or people who leave us. This is the wonderful and strange way that Christians get to live in time. We aren't living in a time where there is an invisible formula that we must have failed if we are suffering. We are living with heaven coming someday.
"This is a life where loss happens. Tragedy happens. Period. That hurricane is not picking the houses, it just is. We are story making creatures, and on the back end of something so horrific, once I am able to breathe, I get to pick the story that I write next. And one of those stories will imprison me forever, and one of those stories will set me free." John Delony
As I write these words, a few hours before the beginning of 2025, my eleven-year-old Pomengranate slides into my bedroom. She has tears behind her green eyes, and she's left her super strong Daddy in the kitchen in themiddle of their baking to sit on my lap. Me? Really? I'm strong enough for you little Brownie? You are picking me over your Daddy?
"What is it?" I ask, and she doesn't know, and I pull her onto my lap and tell her that it's okay to cry. She nods and snuggles in closer, and I rub her back, and I thank God that He allowed me to look my losses directly in the face in a year of refining that was 2024. It is exactly these reflections that are allowing me to understand how important these conversations with my daughter are.
I ask her if I can snap a picture, and she says yes, and I take it, and I don't care that I look older than I wish and weigh more than I would like and am quite aware now that I'm no longer the volleyball and basketball superstar I once was, but instead, I am a 47-year-old mother, most likely over halfway through this journey we call life.
I say words to Hannah that I didn't have just twelve months ago. Debilitated by migraines and so desperate to end the pain, I went off my decades-long-anti-depressant companion. And what followed was the opportunity to look my grief in the face and heal and leave a prison I didn't even know I was in.
I tell my youngest daughter that Jesus is not afraid of her sadness. He is present in grief even if we don't what the grief is from. Go ahead and cry little Hannah Joy Pomegranate Kitsteiner. Don't be afraid of your emotions. Your Savior died for you and you are who He made you to be. And I'm your Mom, and when you don't know what to do, I'm gonna help you for as long as you will let me.
