Bones Always Heal

Seminary was rough. But it was the good kind of rough. The kind where you come out on the other side knowing more about yourself. The kind where you experience God.

After seminary, I desired a time of healing. All I wanted to do was rest. To relax. To give my heart and my head time to process all that happened to me.

After a summer saying goodbye to the people and places that I loved. I moved to Texas.

I searched for what God had for me next. I was convinced I had landed a dream position. I hadn’t (I will talk more about that next time).

There are those who say that God causes everything that happens to us. There are those who say that God causes nothing that happens. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. God is not waiting on the other side. He is not waiting for us to succeed or fail. Nor is he waiting to give us comfort when we have finally overcome.

Rather I believe that God is present in the midst of our lives.

After losing the position, I went numb for a while. Sleep occupied my days. Well, sleep and Netflix. The fog began to lift in April. In May the skies were clear again. I felt confident that I knew what was needed. I felt confident that I could do what was needed.

On the twenty second of May, I tripped while in the front drive way. I accomplished this feat while stepping over some twigs that were roughly six inches high. As I stumbled face first, I reached out with the palms of my hands to catch myself. The impact of the fall traveled up my left arm and shattered the head of my radius (arm bone on the “outside” if your hands are by your side).

Shattered is not hyperbole.

There were shards of bone now floating in arm. Surgery was the only option. Surgery was a success. My elbow is healed and my arm is rehabbing nicely. But we need to back up.

After the initial break, my arm was in a sling for a week. Then surgery. After surgery, my arm was in a brace for a week. This was followed by three weeks of slow gradual improvement in my range of motion coupled with six weeks in a brace that prevented me from turning my arm so that my palm was facing up.

I felt helpless. I felt useless. I wondered where God could possibly be in this time.

However, I was forced to slow down, and in that slowing I found again how to rest in God’s strength.

The healing I experienced during my time at seminary was an active one. I was in engaged in learning. I was in engaged in stretching myself beyond my comfort and ease. I was engaged with friends who taught me more than words can describe.

The healing I received while in Texas was a passive one. I didn’t have the money for the surgery. I didn’t have the strength to serve. I didn’t have the faith to believe that God was present in my pain. I didn’t have the faith to believe what I was seeking was worth seeking.  I had to ask. I had to receive. I had no other option than to be passive. I had no other option than wait. I had no other option than to heal.

Dear reader, I am sure you have noticed that I have moved from speaking of the physical healing of my bones to speaking of the spiritual healing of learning to receive from others. Learning to be a piece of a whole. However, it was my broken bone that allowed this lesson to be received.



X-Ray 3 months after surgery

My injury provided not only the space to heal but the analogy of healing as well. Bones will always heal. No matter what happens bones will grow back together. The nature of my injury was such that without surgery the shards of bone in my elbow would have grown into a single mass severely limiting the use of my left elbow.

Things had to be put back together the way they were meant to be. Time had to pass. I had to wait. I had to be passive. I had to let the bones do their work.

To receive the healing I sought, things had to be put back together the way they were meant to be. Time had to pass. I had to wait. I had to be passive. I had to let God to the work.

 

--Healing as a part of a whole, along side all of you,
Just from father away

--Jesse Letourneau

My healing...

“One may be cured and healed, or cured and not healed. It is also possible that one may not experience a cure to their disease, but be healed in the midst of it. … Cure is temporary, since all die; but healing is forever (Health Human Life, Bruckner pp. 212-213).” These two sentences encapsulate my personal journey of healing this semester.

I wrote during the first blog of this semester that I had not yet experienced my healing moment. At the time I understood healing in light of cure rather than in light of the wholeness is discussed throughout Bruckner's book. I expected my struggle to go away, to be taken care of, to be cured. However, at least for now, I join Paul in stating that “my thorn” has yet to be removed. I stand “un-cured.”

Yet, my healing moment has begun. I am learning that healing (wholeness) in the presence of, even in spite of malady and imperfection is possible. I have found wholeness even without “perfection”. (Perfection being the idea that a whole, complete and optimally functioning physical body is necessary to be “healthy”.) I found peace with my God (e.g. right relationship). I am trusting his healing work in my life.

As noted above my “thorn” remains. There are days when it causes more pain and days when it causes less. There are days where I am ever mindful of its impact upon my life, and days when freedom reigns in my heart and mind. I am not cured, but I am living into my healing. Paraphrasing the words of Paul I can now proclaim, “Thanks be to God who makes me whole through Jesus Christ.”

--Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away
--Jesse Letourneau



















Coming Next week, a review of my semester, via my review of the films I have viewed this year.

Imagining Mud

This semester my goal is to post four monthly blog entries arriving on the first Wednesday of each month. My guess is that they will revolve around my class “Christian Perspectives in Health and Healing” and the main text book “Healthy Human Life: A Biblical Witness” info here.

Health and its relationship to spirituality has been an underlying focus of my time here in seminary. This class has given me language to express what the Lord has been teaching me during my time in Chicago. I enrolled in the class to gain a fuller understanding of Shalom. The idea of Shalom carries a sense of wholeness to it.

This is something I wish to explore more deeply. My faith has long been one of segregation. My mind, body, soul, and spirit were all viewed as separate things. My faith was tied to my mind. If I thought correctly, I would act correctly; and my spirit would be at peace. Care for my body was relegated to right actions. These actions focused on the negative, what I didn’t do (smoke, cuss, or chew as the old adage goes). During high school, I didn’t drink alcohol. This wasn’t because I was young and it could harm me, but because it wasn’t what “good Christians did.” Again, my actions were driven by right and wrong. My care for myself was based on avoiding sin.

Since I have come to North Park, words like, holistic, self-care, and Shalom have begun to become a part of my vocabulary, and are finding their way into my practices. Yet, I still struggle with right and wrong. I still wonder if I am doing the things that please God. I too often fall back on a false theology that states God is only pleased with me in relationship to the number of right things I do. I fall back on the false perception that right thinking leads to right action, and wrong/sinful thinking leads to wrong/sinful actions.

God is good, and God heals, however, I often feel like I am still waiting for my healing experience. I have some issues that pride and fear, as well as prudence keep me from describing in detail here on-line. What I have come to understand is that I do believe that I am loved by God. My theology states that I was created by God, but I do not think of myself as created by God.

My imagination does not see the hand of God reaching down to craft my form from mud. It does not sense the breath of God filling my lungs. I do not recognize myself to be one who reflects the image of God. Instead, I see myself as less than.

But this is okay. Because it simply is. What is cannot be changed. What can change is what will be. I currently live in community where my worth is held for me. Others know what I know (that I am made in the imago Dei) but more importantly, they see that I am made in the image of God. They see my worth, and they speak truth into my life. They give light to my soul. They hold for me what I cannot hold for myself.

Someday it will be that I see my own worth. On that day I will hold my own story, and the light in my soul will come from my imagination now freed to view myself as a worthy child of God.

 --Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away
 --Jesse Letourneau

Conclusion of sorts (aka cacophony of thoughts part 2/edge of epiphany part 2)

When we last left our hero he had graduated from college and moved to the big city.

Okay, I didn't really move to that big of a city. But I did have a kind of "if I can make it here I can make it anywhere" attitude. The original plan was to work as a classroom teacher for a couple of years while getting my credential and then be able to work anywhere in the US as an elementary teacher.

Eight years later...

I was still working as a substitute and barely able to make ends meet. Clearly, I wasn't cut out to be a classroom teacher. I was however made to be a Children's Pastor. This fact was evident to all but me.

But before we get there I wanna back up to my first few years at Grace.
Grace was a home for me. It was more than just a place to serve, it was more than just a place to go that wasn't my apartment or the occasional sub job. It is a place where I found family and security.

I remember one Easter where I joked that I had to leave my "adopted family" (the Derby/Harsh clan) to go to my real family for their Easter meal. Before I could leave Meredith insisted that she take pictures with me and her two girls. In some very real ways, I was adopted into that family. Greg served as a surrogate father and the girls were like my little sisters.

Times change, schedules change, rhythms change, and eventually the Harshs weren't as strong a part of my life as they had been. Somewhere along the way I bonded with the McMullens. I can't even begin to describe what that family has been to me.

Between this transition there came the failed experiment of my going to UC Irvine to get a teaching credential. There were some good times, there were some hard times, some lessons learned the easy way, and some lessons learned the hard way. Ultimately, it wasn't what God had for me. Some of the failure came at my own procrastination, some came through challenges that were beyond my control.

Ultimately, I didn't pass my classes at Irvine because I didn't do all the work. Instead I spent, my time serving in the Children's Ministry at Grace.

I still remember when, after that lunch with Scott Peterson and the bus ride from the airport a few weeks later, that it finally clicked, and I knew what I was suppose to do. I was so excited to tell family and friends of my revelation. I was met with a lot of, "We already knew that." and "It's about time you figured it out." (all said in the most loving way possible.)

When I told my mom her response was, "Of course you are suppose to be in a church and not a classroom. Why didn't you pass the classes at Irvine?"

I was always a Children's Pastor, I just didn't know it.

During these years there were those who knew my story (again mostly those who worked closely with me in ministry). But it wasn't my identity anymore.

At least not to the outside world. Inside though-as I look back, I certainly didn't see it at the time-their was that sliver of need. need to be a kid. need to be a dad. need to be loved.

need to know the stories were real.

More than that, what was inside of me during these years was the belief that I wasn't good enough. There was no way I could be called into ministry, because I am no example, no model, I am too broken to fix others.

Then came John Coe. Or at least tapes of John Coe listen to and discussed in an intimate Bible Study made up of two couples (one of which were the Young Adult Pastor and his wife) and myself. Tapes of John Coe describing the dark night of the soul and what that means. Tapes of John Coe listened to and discussed in a group that had dinner parties around getting me to fill out applications and start to move forward. Tapes listened to and discussed with a group that made me cookie monster cakes and went to see Les Mis at the Hollywood Bowl.

A group that cared. Not about my mission, my calling, and certainly not about my failures. But cared about me.

Then God called me to camp.

The first part of this blog centered around the death of my father and how that impacted my identity. It started as very external thing, and slowly moved inward. By this point (circa 2008) it was moved in so deeply that even I hardly notice it.

At camp even fewer knew about my dad. Funny thing was though, they accepted me none the less. They didn't pitty me or need to support me cause I was broken, they just accepted me. Same thing happened at the church I went to. In fact during my time at ARCG/RCC I can only think of two times I told the story of my dad from start to finish (and one of those was in South Africa.)

Then I got involved in the Children's Ministry at RCC, which lead me to North Park.

Something was said to me last semester that is one of the most encouraging things and one of the most frightening things that has ever been said to me. It is encouraging because it shows the strength and healing God has already done in my life. It is frightening because it shows that my course, my path, my story was not inevitable. I had always assumed that my life with all its ups and downs just naturally led me to the place I am now.

We were sharing in small group setting about how we address God in our prayers. The group knew my story from previous conversations. I began with the statement, "I usually begin my prayers with 'Father God' which isn't really a surprise given my story." One of the response to me was, "I don't think that the way you address God is a given, given your story. I think there are several other ways you could understand God through all of that."

It was another reminder that I have been called out. Set aside, made special, made especially for the work of telling children THE story.

So here I sit. On the edge of epiphany. Here I sit ready to go back and expose the wounds, so that they may be cleaned and healed. I am not completely sure when and how this will all happen. But I am trusting God to equip the one he has called.

--Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away
--Jesse Letourneau

the edge of epiphany

I had this great and lofty goal.

I was going to sit down and tell you all the tales of January.

There was one about beginnings and acceptances (and blunderbusses) underscored by Doctor Who at the Mc Mullens.

There was a mini-adventure in the airport, and an object lesson about waiting.

There was the story of legendary Post-Christmas Gift Exchange Party that I got myself invited to.

There were everyday tales about my life, and new apartment, classes, and friends old and new.

There was half a blog about Phil Vischer's story and how it kinda echos mine.

Yet when I sat down to write, I felt empty. I feel empty like no one would care to hear my mundane little stories. That they wouldn't help you grow or understand God. So why bother.

Now I hear the protests and the complaints. I hear the reassurances of my worth and of your interest in my tales. But I'm just here to put down my thoughts, and these are them.

But here is the thing. I feel something more.

Something just out of reach. There is a wholeness and a healing for what is broken inside.

I can't grasp it yet. I can't even see it yet. But I know that it is there.

I know it will come through classes and council, friends and strangers. It will come as I sit and listen, it will come as I get up and do. It will come from above.

So I sit here on the edge of epiphany.

--Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away
--Jesse Letourneau