“The paradox of volcanoes was that they were symbols of destruction but also life. Once the lava slows and cools, it solidifies and then breaks down over time to become soil-rich, fertile soil.
She wasn’t a black hole, she decided. She was a volcano. And like a volcano she couldn’t run away from herself. She’d have to stay there and tend to that wasteland.
She could plant a forest inside herself.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library
A misguided notion about religion is that we are supposed to be living joyfully at all times because we have been promised eternal life. But this grip on happiness keeps us from exploring the other complex emotions God created.
In my experience, those shoving down heavy emotions God meant to be experienced are often people harboring a deep well of fear and anxiety about all that we can not control. These seemingly joy-filled people are celebrated as owners of deep faith, but many act out of self-preservation.
And I understand it. I have used this technique and respect the need. Self-preservation has kept many of us breathing through parts of our lives that would be unsurvivable if not for our self-protection toolbox.
Yet.
We know that Jesus, our ultimate role model, was not always cloaked in happiness.
Jesus wept, Jesus sought respite, Jesus became angry, Jesus cried out. Jesus questioned.
And Jesus won.
What do we learn from Jesus’ personal walk on this earth, aside from the Good News, which we celebrate each Easter Sunday?
Jesus lived a fully human life and experienced complex emotions and deep struggles. He sat with those emotions and talked to his Father. A cycle that continuously led him back to God with a renewed clarity. Continued dependence on his Father.
Our trials, the volcanoes that explode and pour out hot lava, come to us in many forms, but life will spare not one of us from the devastating fire spilling into our lives. Mental illness, cycles of family dysfunction, addiction, people obsessing over who we love, shame, death, abuse, loss, failing physical health, terminal diagnosis, tragic accidents, horrific acts of terrorism, racism, ghosting, unsafe marriages, divorce…The list never ends.
Weathering these trials is painful. But creates a ground fertile enough for a new faith to flourish within us. It is a chewed-up-and-been-spit-out, fierce devotion, and it acknowledges that we had stuffed God into a constricting box and then stood around the box arguing with each other. Our policing of that precious box displaying our desperate need for control.
Beautifully, a dark night of the soul blows God straight out of that box. Our weakness and dependence on God are revealed, and our doubts arise, enriching our walk. We can sit in wonder, planted in all that we can not possibly know.
Now we will bristle at the God box. Now we burn that freaking box to the ground.
And just as Haig points out in The Midnight Library, the ashes create rich and fertile soil. Delivering us straight into freedom.
This Good Friday, I hope you genuinely note and ponder the moments of doubt, pain, and emotion Jesus encountered on Good Friday. He was a human experiencing all feelings; he did not have to shrug off his pain and choose joy in his misery. And neither do we.
May it open you up to experience all the same things and know they will bring you closer, not further, to God.