Finding Hope and Healing in Our Scars

i really applaud the courage of of just asking this question and being open about anxiety and depression i mean we are in a mental health crisis in this country and i do believe that any world view that you're going to commit to has to speak to that and i don't think that everyone does i i remember seeing a commercial a while back and um the commercial depicted a baby being born and then over the next 30 seconds sort of an odd commercial but over the next 30 seconds this this child flew through the air and went through all the different stages of life so this kind of infant became a toddler became an adolescent and an adult and then started to become elderly and then kind of became more hunched over and gray as this person now descended out of the sky and crashed into a grave dead and then the screen went black and words appeared across the screen and said life is short play more xbox and i reacted just like that you know like i sort of like i sort of like instinctively left i'm like that's funny and then i was like but that's also devastating like really is that the best we've got life is short and it's full of anxiety and depression and loss and betrayal and relational conflict and but there's nothing we can do about it anyway so you know just try to distract yourself just you know spend more time on social media and just play more xbox like is that really the best that we've got and i believe that christianity says something very different and it says something that affirms in one sense those feelings of anxiety and depression because it says that there is a large chasm between the way things are right now and the way things are supposed to be and christians feel that deeply too it was cs lewis who said that we're content to play in the mud because we can't imagine a holiday at the beach we can't imagine the goodness of actually living life with god and the community he desires and how good that would be eternally so we're content sometimes in in the mud but but sometimes it also goes the other way too like once we get a glimpse as a christian of the goodness of living with god it can then be very difficult to kind of come back and live in the mud of this broken world so i think that this the anxiety the depression this is something which is felt across the board whether you're a non-christian or whether you're a christian we need a worldview that says something to it we need a worldview that answers the question why do i feel this way and we need a worldview that answers the question who can help and i find that the christian faith says a lot about why we feel that way right first in a general sense there's this chasm between where we are and where things are supposed to be but let's even get more specific how about one form of anxiety take separation anxiety one type of anxiety okay anxiety caused by a sense of not having a home or being separated from people who are supposed to be significant in your life the bible tells me that i'm in exile that i'm a foreigner that my real citizenship is in heaven it tells me that there's a significant sense in which i'm not home it helps to make sense of some of those emotions and it also tells me that my natural state on this earth is separation from the person that i'm supposed to be in closest relationship with with god himself so it makes sense of some of what we experience and oftentimes in the context of anxiety we're told that what has happened is that we've overestimated our fears that we have fears that are out of proportion with the reality of the circumstances that are causing them a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy that's one of the thrusts now sometimes that's right okay sometimes that's good like if you have an irrational fear of spiders in a place where there are no spiders then great like let's let's talk about that let's fact check that let's get some new neural pathways going like you know let's let's deal with that but what about when the fears are grounded very firmly in the reality of this broken world now what about when the fears are that the relationships that mean the most to you might not last what about when the fears are of betrayal what about when the fears are the hopes that you have for life are going to go unfulfilled what about when the fear is death what about when the fears are not overestimated but they they are very real in this broken world then what are we supposed to do and maybe it's not so much that we've overestimated our fears but we've underestimated who can do something about it and i remember when my best friend had a mental breakdown caused by anxiety and i remember him saying to me only a counselor who has been through what i am going through can help and i thought that was such a significant statement from him and i was able to talk to him about jesus being our wonderful counselor being the counselor who actually has been through it who has suffered with us and not in just some general sense right he sweat blood in the garden right does he understand the experience of the walls closing in okay when he was arrested everyone deserted him and fled i've always thought it's one of the most devastating lines in all of the bible but he understands that sense of being betrayed he understands that sense of isolation on the cross as joe said him crying why have you forsaken me he understands an emotion so deep and visceral as forsaken-ness is jesus mad at us for these emotions that that we have no i think he's mad with us i think he's mad with us because he really understands in a very specific way and the world is not the way it's supposed to be and he's enacted a plan for eventually the world to be very different both right now where he says you can come to me come to me all of you who are weary and burdened and i will give you rest you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light you don't have to convince yourselves that your fears are overestimated you can acknowledge that they're real but you can hand them over to me right now and then eventually one day there's going to come a time where there can be no more death or mourning or crying or pain if you put your trust in me and i will be the one who wipes away every tear jesus understands and jesus can do something about it i remember a friend a clinical therapist a good friend of mine and he told me that there was a woman who came to him and she had a long history of cutting herself and they had their first session together and then at the end of the first session she said there's just one more question before i decide whether we can work together or not and then she said will you touch my scars and he asked her why that was important to her and she said well that's the only way i'll know if you really care about me if you're willing to cross a divide to actually reach out and touch my scars and my wounds and what my friend said to me was he said what she was saying was are you willing to viscerally descend into the darkness with me are you willing to be identified with my brokenness are you willing to actually touch my being with with yours and through the process of their counseling he had the opportunity to share with him that that is exactly what god has done in the incarnation god literally descends to touch our scars he literally puts his being into our being and reaches out and is identified with our wounds and through that she gave her life to christ and he was able to also share with her that even beyond that jesus not only reaches out and touches your scars but he was scarred for you even invites you to touch his scars to think of doubting thomas right he says i can't put my trust in you unless i actually see the scars and can reach out and touch them and jesus appeared and said peace be with you and he said reach your hand and put it here reach out your hand and put it into my side we can we can trust jesus with our scars because he was scarred for us and then beyond that he literally invited us to reach out and touch his scars he trusted us with his scars so we can trust him with our scars and through this this woman was able to see that jesus was the one that she could put her trust in and she eventually said this beautiful stunning word she said i know now that my scars likely will not disappear she said but i have hope that one day they will bear the glory of the one who was scarred for me every one of us will have scars in this life they will often have a lot to do with anxiety and depression but can we turn to the one who gives us hope that one day they will bear the glory of the one who was scarred for us [00:00:08]