Kimberly Majeski
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Preacher Girl School
  • Media/Publications
  • Speaking
  • About
    • Store
    • References
  • Stripped Love
  • Preacher Girl School Member Only
  • Webinar
  • Link Page

Jesus and Women: Running Late, Again?

2/19/2012

7 Comments

 
It is 4:53 in the morning and I have an appointment with grief. I stumble down the stairs in the darkness, the morning lit only by the moon reflecting off the new fallen snow. I dreamt of her again. This time she is rallying and coming home from the hospital to find my fruit salad to “hit the spot.” She calls me and we laugh. We talk of remodeling her kitchen, of refinishing the cabinets in the soft green of sycamore. We make plans for dinner and I feel myself begin to relax a bit, as if it might all be okay. I awake and I know I have been dreaming, I remember instantly that she is gone, all the scenes from the untold hours in the hospital as March turned into May flood my mind, those hours when we waited and prayed and hoped counting any sign of progress as praise.

Her pain is what keeps me up at night. We are never prepared to see those we love cry out in pain while we stand helpless and weak, holding hands, feeding ice chips, singing songs. I remember her pain, I remember that I could not make it stop. I remember that I screamed for God to take her pain away, and so, God did, in God’s way, in God’s time.

It is with this—this God’s way, God’s time— that, if I’m honest, I struggle. The truth is somewhere down deep in this theologian’s heart there is a hidden belief that God exists to protect us from pain, to relieve us from heartache and to keep us from the broken, hurtful places of this life such that when I face soul wrenching pain I believe God has failed me, that God is not on time. Not a pretty confession for a professor of Bible, but the unspoken truth of a girl who lost her sister and now her mama far too soon.
Picture
In this struggle I am drawn down to the pages of the Gospel of John and another story of our sisters, Martha and Mary who know something about waiting on the Lord. Followers, friends and believers of the power of God in Jesus, yet they too cried out to him, “Where have you been?” It seemed to Martha and Mary that Jesus showed up too late since their brother Lazarus had passed four days prior—their struggle is not belief but acceptance, they question God’s timing, God’s ways.

We should go easy on them, as this is a struggle as old as creation itself, as old as the relationship between the human and the Divine.  Abraham and Joseph and Job writhed against understanding God’s ways, God’s time, and so do we all, descendants of the Garden as are we.  

Jesus will reveal to our sisters that God’s timing has a purpose, “To demonstrate the glory of God,” and as the story continues Jesus calls Lazarus back from the grave—glorious to be sure. For my part, I am caught earlier in the story, before all is well, before anything makes sense, when Jesus weeps with those he loves who are hurting and confused, his tears are glorious. Divine beauty and love poured out in those salty tears shimmering down his lovely face.

It is the sacred tears, the holy love, the “I’m in this with you,” Jesus who holds us up in hospital rooms, who props us up in our homes filled with dreams foreclosed and sustains us in our bodies that cannot carry babies to term. It is this Jesus who weeps with us and holds us close in the midst of our pain, when we cannot understand the ways or the timing of God. It is this Jesus who knows our pain, who keeps us, who stands with us, who never will leave or forsake us who reminds us that God’s ways and God’s timing are perfect, so that we lift our heads in hope, we lift our lives in surrender and we spend our days leaning hard into the love that will see us through to the glorious end of it all.

7 Comments
Cyndee link
2/19/2012 09:07:58 am

I FEEL this note... I've walked that path with a loved one... I continue to walk through life spending my "days leaning hard into the love that will see us through to the glorious end of it all." Love you Kimberly!!

Reply
kimberly
2/19/2012 02:01:29 pm

Thanks friend, always good to know we're not alone.

Reply
Michelle
2/19/2012 10:24:35 am

Thanks Kimberly! I needed to hear this today. I know a few friends who will be blessed by it as well.

Reply
kimberly
2/19/2012 02:03:14 pm

Thanks Michelle!

Reply
Chris Sheets
2/19/2012 03:41:05 pm

I don't know if you have heard, but my mother-in-law was recently diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. It did me good to read this, thanks for sharing your heart, thanks for reminding me where my hope lies, thanks for reminding me I'm not alone! Jesus is Lord!

Reply
kimberly
2/20/2012 12:41:14 pm

Chris, I am so sorry; I had not heard the news on David's mom. Sending lots of love + prayers your way in this difficult season.

Reply
Stephanie Miles link
2/22/2012 06:49:35 am

Kim;
I just read this and wept. The moment of learning of my mother's death came flooding over me as it has a million times since that shocking day. I too dream of her occasionally. I think it may be God's way of affirming that she is healed now...no longer in pain....that one day we will see each other again. It is that hope that gets me through the grief filled moments.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Subscribe Today for Free Gift

    BLOG


    Picture

    Archives

    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    February 2018
    November 2017
    September 2017
    August 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    October 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    July 2010
    May 2010

    Categories

    All
    Advent
    Anderson University School Of Theology
    Anne Lamott
    Ann Voskamp
    Baptism
    Chick
    Church
    Church Of God
    Confessions
    Corinth
    Doubt
    Downton Abbey
    Egalatarian
    Fab Five
    Faith
    Final Things
    Found
    Graduation
    Grief
    Growing Up In Church
    Hagaar
    Hebrew
    Holiness
    Holy Land 2012
    Jesus
    Joanna
    Julie And Norberto Kurrle
    Kingdom
    Landmines
    Laughter
    Leaving Church
    Lent
    Living
    Loss
    Lost
    Love
    Lydia
    Marie Howe
    Mary
    Mary Magdalene
    New Life
    New Testament
    N.T. Wright
    Olympics
    One Holy Catholic Apostoic Church
    One Thousand Gifts
    Paul
    Peace
    Preaching
    Prisca
    Rachel Held Evans
    Real Housewives
    Reconciliation
    Revelation
    Sabbath
    Sarah
    Seasons
    Sex Workers And Soccer Moms
    Staying In Church
    Strippers
    Survivors
    Susanna
    Theology
    Watch And Pray
    Wesleyan
    Wisdom
    Woman At The Well
    Women
    Women Clergy
    Women In Geneaology Of Christ
    Women In Ministry
    Zumba

    RSS Feed

© 2020 Kimberly Majeski
Photo used under Creative Commons from garussell11
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Preacher Girl School
  • Media/Publications
  • Speaking
  • About
    • Store
    • References
  • Stripped Love
  • Preacher Girl School Member Only
  • Webinar
  • Link Page