Right in the Ruins
This time of year can be so hard. There’s so much to be thankful for. I was thinking the other day when a terrible date rolled around for year 2. A friend was tragically killed at Christmas leaving his family, his 3 boys fatherless. It was senseless and sickening. It’s hard to process. It leaves everyone’s heart so sick. I don’t write this with only this in mind, but it definitely makes me get away and spend time with God for where I am and where I know many others are. Maybe it’s winter. Maybe it’s lament. But whatever we call it, I know it’s important to stop and listen.
What should be a sweet season often isn’t. But with a little positivity we can continue to fight the good fight of faith. Faith because Jesus came. There’s something about faith even in devastation that proclaims hope. This has been a hard season. One of promise that feels like things were just ripped away. Or maybe we were just told to wait and be disciplined. There are layers to shed here. There’s a cloak of heaviness that needs to be left. There’s something in the air just typing that frees the spirit and says, “I can do this. But not alone.”
So here I sit reflecting on ruins. Several years ago, Jody and I got to travel to visit Samira and Max. We took a quick trip to Italy and found our last day trip ending at Pompeii before our last night in Rome. There is something powerful and incredible about ruins. Honestly, I found it my least favorite stop of the day, having seen the Amalfi coast, Sorrento, and Positano. But restless as I was, I stopped to ask, what do you want to teach me here? Among the rubble, ash, and defeat, there was a spirit of persistence and calm. Yes of emptiness, but still something else lingered strong. As I press into that “something” a little more, I’m left asking, “What are you? What are you saying? God, was is that?”
Even in a city destroyed, not a soul survived, RUINS speak. They tell a story of lives lived. Preserved, especially there. Last moments, cruel. But those ruins still told a story of a time when things were pretty simple. There was order and organization to their day. There were little things that we can see that were even humorous about how they lived in the markings. There was art, there was a grocery store, a kitchen, and a toilet. J
These lessons for present day can be really powerful when we take the time to reflect on what we can learn. Ruins call forth something in our human spirit to survive. To breathe VICTORY in the face of defeat and say, “NO. I will rise.” Ruins teach us that the price has been paid. Right now may be crushing. Right now may need some relief. Right now will turn into joy and laughter again and the weight will be gone. We can learn a lot from the ruins. From Ruins, of plans, of schemes, of intercession, we can see that people did not want Jesus to die. An ear was cut off, Judas betrayed with a kiss, Jesus prayed take this cup from me. But in ruin, He carried the cross and climbed the hill. He bore the weight. He hung there, ridiculed, pierced, and died. He took the worst separation and loneliness from God to do this. He took the weight of sin. He ruined himself for us. Willingly knowing that God’s will was better. God’s grace was more generous than anything we will ever encounter. There was NEVER a day that the earth knew such devastation than to think that Jesus was no more. Jesus was in the grave and hope was gone. That would have been a crushing morning. That would have been a devastation where breathing was hard. I’ve been there before. I remember vividly when Jody was in the hospital the night after his accident. I woke barely able to breathe. Lord, did he make it? Is he ok, is he alive? Even being unsure, there’s such a comfort knowing that Jesus is in complete control. But those were crushing thoughts that morning and many to come. The only way you battle is one foot in front of the other, knowing that God will be there in the moments ahead, regardless of who is. (Can you stop right here and just say a special prayer for someone? Yes I’m going to stay evasive here and cliché. God already knows and I know what I ask. You don’t need details to pray for someone. Can you pray a Paul like moment of love and grace?)
If you feel a wrestling in your spirit as you read this, I ask you to just stop again. Stop trying to process your ruin. Or Ruin at all. Just let it go. Our mind and spirit can only handle so much. Our neurologic system is strong, but there’s a point when emotional processing goes into overdrive and begins to make us sick. That’s how fear works. Don’t believe me. Chronic muscle tension, headaches, inability to take a breath or feel the weight release are all just a FEW signs that your processing is housing and settling somewhere in the body it shouldn’t. We have to connect with the ruins to process and let them go. Letting them go doesn’t mean we forget them. It doesn’t mean we get to drop them and stop carrying them for others. It means we process whatever RUIN we have come to know. It means we process the pain, process the weight and come to the end of ourselves and say, “Jesus oh! I cannot anymore. It’s too heavy. It makes no sense. It’s too much.” When we do this, we will find His strength is there to lift this yoke. To bear the weight of ruin and teach us what we need to learn from it. Ruins do become part of us. But if we carry them properly, without the crushing weight that they are, they will make Him shine through the cracks and transform into the beautiful art and history that they were meant to be. They are never even fun. They are never thought of without sorrow and sometimes lament. But the lessons, the tears, the pain, and the season declares, I am a child of God. I’m so glad I don’t have to walk through this alone. His presence is the only way we make it. Jesus was ruined for us. His ruins rose. They give us VICTORY in our defeat and call us to RISE when we cannot.
