Lent can ache with loneliness that ends up feeling like a kind of wilderness.

“Lent can ache with loneliness that ends up feeling like a kind of wilderness.”

The Farmer and I, after a long season of prayer and late night discussions, finally found ourselves on the cusp of taking steps forward into a community of new connections and relationships — but then, as we stumbled into a tender, unexpected, heartbreaking chapter in our story, we found ourselves achingly, painfully, alone.

Crisis can make you feel like you have leprosy, and when you most need people, you can feel most shunned. At 3 am, we’d wake, unable to get warm, wander to the kitchen and simply cry and cling to each other. Grief is devastatingly cold, and the only way to get warm is to hold on tight to someone.

After an emergency session with my therapist, I think about it long, how we can too often respond to people in pain.

“When conversations lead with shame — real people end up limping lame.”

Sure, there was that one guy who was born blind, and that was the first big, begging question, right out of the gate was: “Who got it wrong, this guy or his parents?”

Who got it wrong, who tripped and messed things up, who fell hard and took out whole bunch of people on the way down? What did someone do to cause this suffering, why did this go down the way it went down, that took everybody down?

When conversations lead with shame — real people end up limping lame.

Lead the conversation with shame, and you lose. Lead the conversation with shame and you lose perspective, lose trust, lose relationship, lose redemption, lose the light of Christ.

“Suffering isn’t a riddle to unlock, but a call to enter in and unlock redemptive hope.”

I kept tracing that scar on my index finger at 3:30 am when I couldn’t sleep. The reality is: People in pain aren’t a puzzle to solve, but are people to provide for and protect. Suffering isn’t a riddle to unlock, but a call to enter in and unlock redemptive hope.

True, yes, it can be seductively easy to hunt for a neat, formulaic explanation to conclude the why of someone’s pain, just so we can avoid the how of they got there. If we just can nail down what they get wrong, maybe it gets us off the hook for any suffering? If we point fingers to the reason for someone’s pain, it’s a heady but futile way for us to point out the way to detour around any pain for us.

It’s strange how the human default can be to shame people in pain. Shaming others for their story, can be a way of distancing and protecting yourself from ever having that story.

“Sin always happens — but nothing happens that stops the works of God from happening.”

“Who messed up, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9)

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9).

Sin always happens — but nothing happens that stops the works of God from happening.

The question isn’t so much who did what wrong — but Who, even now, are you looking toward to make all things gloriously right?

The question isn’t so much why did this happen — but look at how great and glorious God-good is still happening.

“It’s not ours so much to conclude about a situation, but to be cruciform and compassionate in all situations.“

The question isn’t who is to blame or shame. The question is: How can this story change me, a community, to live out grace?

It’s not ours so much to conclude about a situation, but to be cruciform and compassionate in all situations.

“It is ours, not to speculate,” writes the great theologian Charles Spurgeon, “but to perform acts of mercy and love, according to the tenor of the gospel. Let us then be less inquisitive and more practical, less for cracking doctrinal [shells], and more for bringing forth the bread of life to the starving multitudes.” (Spurgeon)

“In the middle of every wilderness, there can be real oasis.”

A couple whom we’ve been friends with since we were teenagers, made a cake together, brought it over, and we feasted on tender, redeeming grace. A heart-sister put a package in the mail and texted me worship songs every morning. My confessional community of 6 women all convened a spontaneous hour long zoom session to sit with us, to be fully present with us, to listen with open heart to us, to speak Gospel over us.

In the middle of every wilderness, there can be real oasis. In the middle of a lonely Lent — love can be lent, hope can be lent, withness can be lent.

Withness is always what waters our wildernesses.

“Letting go of shame — lets grace cover us and carry us tenderly out of the wilderness.”

And maybe the surest thing to give up in Lent, in relationships, in communities, is shame and blame. Shame never keep us in line — it’s keeps us in shackles. Shame drowns us in condemnation, grace grows us in conviction. Shame exiles us out of community — grace heals us in community. Shame drives us in the wrong direction, into the arms of depression, addiction, regression — grace rightly drives us in the direction of Him.

Letting go of shame — lets grace cover us and carry us tenderly out of the wilderness.

In the third week of Lent, at 3:00 am, we’re sleeping deep and warm.

Are you desperate for more than just a way through, but The Way through?