Being Delivered: Grace & Perspective for Life's Upheavals
Life isn't always a hero's journey, sometimes it's more like being delivered.
By the time you read this, it should be almost over: our giant, scary move across the country from Colorado to Virginia.
Moving is a massive life upheaval:
- All our belongings packed and in a truck.
- 1,800 miles of road.
- Saying "goodbye" to our friends and family.
- The prospect of making new friends and learning to fit into a new community.
It's enough to make anyone's stomach churn. But it's nothing compared to life's more serious upheavals: death of a loved one, divorce, job loss, children going astray, a terrible diagnosis… And of course there are all the "little upheavals" that hit us much more frequently: an overdue bill, an angry boss, a smashed car window…
All these thoughts have me reconsidering my perspective on life.
I know it's popular to talk about life as a journey. And the metaphor has merit. When I see life as a hero's journey home, trials are opportunities for growth, and that makes them easier to endure. The journey metaphor focuses on progress. I may have to go down through the abyss, but the overall direction of the hero's journey is up and to the right.
But there's something not quite right about this metaphor in light of life's upheavals.
Life is less like a journey with an abyss to conquer and more like a series of abysmal events from which we need to be delivered.
We are being "delivered."
Like babies.
Yes, that's right. When life's upheavals batter us relentlessly, that's the better image. That's the perspective that makes sense of things.
Life is still a journey, it's just not one I choose to undertake. It's one I undergo. It's a journey through a birth canal.
Scripture shows us the history of the world between creation and Christ's return as one long labor (Romans 8:22). Each upheaval a painful contraction. And the closer we get to the end (of the world and of our individual lives), the more painful and more frequent the contractions become.
This is a deeply GOSPEL perspective.
The journey metaphor slips quickly into a spirituality of self-glory. The ending depends on me. The victory is won through my courage, or lost by my cowardice. Either ending is decided by my choice and merit. Win or lose, at least I'm not helpless.
But the birth metaphor puts me back in my proper place. As the apple of God's eye – his beloved child whom he shepherds through every trial until I take my first breath in the real world. The world of everlasting love and joy. The world where I will finally see my true Father face-to-face (1 John 3:2).
I don't have to do the work of being born. God delivers me. I just undergo it.
I'm still at the center.
There's an interesting similarity between the hero's journey story and the birth story. In both, I'm at the center. Both stories are "about" me. Which makes sense, because it's my (or your) life we're talking about!
But there's also a key difference. In the journey metaphor I'm the main character. It all rides on me. I'm the center and source of the action. In the birth metaphor, nothing depends on me. How could it? But I'm smack in the center of God's loving attention.
God's all about bringing me safely through this traumatic birth so he can wrap his big arms around me, carry me into his home, and then lift me high for all my older siblings to see and shout, "Behold! My beloved son!"
That's why the birth metaphor is so full of gospel good news.
Good news! God is my good Father who delights to give me the kingdom (Luke 12:32).
Good news! God is right by my side. I need not be afraid (Psalm 16:8).
Provisions for the Road
Church hurt can cast a long shadow...
If religious spaces or leaders have hurt you, or you work with those who have been hurt, this webinar is for you!
- Saturday, October 24
- Time: 9 AM Pacific | 10 AM Mountain | 11 AM Central | 12 PM Eastern
- Cost: $25 (or Pay What You Want)
Trauma-Informed & Faith-Grounded: Taught by a licensed mental health therapist who is also a Christian, and theologically grounded. Heidi will give you clinical tools that are rooted in theological soil and respectful of your agency, doubt, and story.
Food for Thought
Things the team found interesting this week, no endorsement implied.
Hello, shimmer trifle.
By Liv Booth on That Thing Liv Wrote
A liturgy for partings, written after friends filled our house to see us off:
"Simple, daily, human-small is Grace served, bite by bite."
Fear of the unknown is linked to lower life satisfaction and heightened death anxiety
By Eric W. Dolan at PsyPost
New research finds that people who find unpredictability especially distressing tend to feel less satisfied with life, largely because it erodes their sense of meaning and heightens their fear of death. Worth reading for anyone whose "what's next?" feels heavier than it should.
Grief Low Self-esteem
By Heidi Goehmann on Substack
"Without wrestling with low self-esteem, without this version of intimacy with myself, I would not have known my deepest need was to remember I was loved and this love had not been lost."
An honest look at how grief can quietly turn us cruel toward ourselves, and the voices of love that call us back.
