(Part One) Encountering Jesus in the Storm: you’re not being punished—the storm is just part of the journey to reconnection.

A series about finding connection with Jesus in the wake of complex trauma, narcissistic family and ministry dynamics, and estrangement.

Recap

Intro: The neuroscience of emotional storms.

Prayer for Presence

Jesus,
I want to see things with your eyes.
I want to hear things with your ears.
I want to feel things with your heart.
I want to understand things with your mind.
I want to say things with your mouth.
I want to touch things with your hands.
I want to go places with your feet.
Amen.

Reading

The story of Jesus walking on water in the storm is found in three gospel passages:
Matthew 14:22-32
Mark 6:45-52
John 6:16-21

Guided Contemplation

The scenes that precede Jesus walking on the water in the storm were the beheading of John the Baptist followed by the feeding of the 5,000. John the Baptist’s disciples buried his body, and went to tell Jesus what happened. Then, Jesus invites his disciples to retreat with him to rest. (Matthew 14:12-13, Mark 6:31-32)

What do you think John’s disciples, Jesus, and Jesus’ disciples were thinking and feeling after the beheading of John the Baptist?

However, the crowds followed them, and interrupted their retreat. But, Jesus had compassion on the crowd, and ministered to them until late in the day. Before the crowd was sent home, Jesus performed the miracle of multiplying two fish and five loaves of bread into enough food for the entire crowd of 5,000 people.

What were Jesus’ disciples thinking and feeling when Jesus said, “you give them something to eat” after their prophet and friend was killed, their retreat was interrupted, and they had just finished a day of unexpected ministry?

“Immediately” following the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus loaded his disciples onto the boat to go ahead of him to the other side of the lake while he dismissed the crowd. This occurred just before sunset so the crowd could get back to their homes before dark. Then, Jesus spent the entire night on the mountainside praying alone.

Why didn’t Jesus get into the boat with the disciples?
Did Jesus know a storm was coming?
What was Jesus praying about on the mountainside?

Jesus re-emerges on the shore just before dawn. The disciples had drifted three to four miles (John 6:19), and had been “struggling at the oars” (Mark 6:48) for approximately 6-9 hours. “Just before dawn” was considered the fourth watch of the night—between 3am and 6am. It is the darkest and coldest part of the night.

What do you think the disciples were thinking and feeling as the night was getting darker, the struggle was getting harder, and they were drifting further and further from shore?
Why did Jesus wait so long to go to the disciples?
Where in your life are you “struggling at the oars” through a storm in the dark?

Reflection

I can relate to the despair the disciples must have felt after “struggling at the oars” in the storm for hours. They were grieving the death of John the Baptist, afraid of what might happen to them, and in desperate need of a retreat after ministering to 5,000 people in the desert. They were expecting smooth sailing to the other side of the sea of Galilee where they could finally get some rest, but an already traumatic and exhausting situation only seemed to get worse.

For the last 15 years I have weathered emotional storms as a result of complex trauma, narcissistic family and ministry dynamics, and estrangement from my loved ones while also trying to stay afloat as a pastor or leader in ministry, a wife, and a friend. For the most part, I have been able to stay afloat in the storms with the tools I have learned in my trauma recovery, and have been able to carry on with my work in ministry and my daily life.

Until, about a year ago, a friend of ours was struck by drunk driver who was attempting to take his own life. As a result, my friend suffered traumatic brain injuries that were ultimately fatal. I served in a chaplaincy role in the ICU and as the funeral director for our friend’s wife and their families. At the same time, the lease on our home and the two year start-up grant that was funding our nonprofit ministry, including my salary, was coming to an end.

I applied for another grant and it was denied. Meetings with potential donors fell flat. I explored the idea of launching a fundraising campaign for my salary, but ultimately discerned the stress of managing grant money and donor relations would be at the expense of my authentic self and the organic development of our ministry. Instead, I applied for part-time work outside of our nonprofit to keep us in our home. I heard nothing in response. With our income cut in half, we submitted our notice to terminate our lease, and began to look for a smaller place to live. I responded to at least 50 different listings, and every one was a closed door. We had no choice but to look for a place to live outside of our competitive and very expensive rental market.

Coincidentally, the landlord that did end up responding to us had a home for rent in the desert—just down the street from our friend’s widow, near the intersection of his accident, and within view of the hospital where he died. With just a few weeks left in our home, we reluctantly signed the lease, and prepared to move 15 hours away.

We sold my camper van, our furniture, and most of our belongings. Then, we said our good-byes to our spiritual community, our friends, and our neighbors. We showed up in the desert with just two suitcases, our dog, and our car. A week later, our car died, and there went the entirety of our savings. A month after that, the investment we made after the sale of our belongings dipped to an unprecedented low. The money we hoped to use as a downpayment on a house and a way back out of the desert became inaccessible for the foreseeable future.

I couldn’t believe what was happening to us. One week we were living near the ocean and the most lush scenic highway in the world, and the next we were surrounded by strip malls, liquor stores, and pawn shops. The desert was brown, hot, and dry. Everything around us reeked of desolation, despair, and death.

As the shock wore off, I began to realize that my genuine love and concern for the widow of our friend far exceeded the strength I had left to care for her needs, let alone anyone else’s in ministry. I finally broke. “I have nothing left to give. I can’t pastor, parent, or perform for anyone anymore,” I explained to my husband.

We considered what we had ahead of us—not just as ministers, but as human beings grieving the murder of our friend. In the coming months, there would be a trial for the sentencing of the drunk driver, the anniversary of the accident, the date we removed life support, the date he died, the date of his funeral, and the date we scattered his ashes. Together, my husband and I made the decision that I would write a letter to our Board of Directors to inform them that we were canceling the ministry events on the calendar, closing applications for the programs we built with the start-up grant, and ceasing all digital marketing until further notice.

That was when the sky went dark and the storm clouds rolled in. The grief of losing our friend, our home, my income, and ministry triggered a storm so violent not only did I fear I was going to drown, I actually wanted to.

Laying in bed at night, wave after wave, the thoughts of despair crashed over me—Maybe all this is my fault. Maybe I gave too much to others when I should have been more focused on taking care of my own life. Maybe God never called me to minister in the ways that I have, and this whole thing was a massive codependent misjudgment on my part. Maybe we ended up here because I didn’t have the courage to thrive in ministry.

Treading water while holding the weight of these questions, I started to slip beneath the waves. My mind reached for memories shared with my estranged loved ones, and for a brief moment, I buoyed to the surface and caught my breath. Though the feeling never lasts long because they are just memories after all. Thoughts from deep beneath the surface threatened to pull me under—If I never would have confronted them I wouldn’t be alone now. Maybe they were right about me. Maybe I am difficult. Maybe I am the one that’s mentally ill. Maybe I am the problem.

These ruminating thoughts seem to promise an escape from the pain, but they always loop back to where I began—my ministry is gone, my home is gone, my income is gone, my loved ones are gone, my friends are gone. I cry, I pray, I spiritually practice in every way I know how, I desperately try to understand—but, when I’m caught in storms like these, I always end up collapsing in despair just before dawn. Then, I wake up a few hours later, open my journal, and reflect on what happened the night before. It is a never-ending cycle and inexhaustible search for answers to the questions, Where are you God? Why is this happening? How do I make the pain stop? My tender heart behind these questions aches with the fear that God has abandoned me, the shame that I could have done something to prevent this, and the despair that my failure and missteps have broken God’s promises of hope for my future.

Three weeks after we arrived in the desert, I began my retreat through the Ignatian Exercises, and as I shared in my introduction, I have been contemplating the story of Jesus walking on water in the storm ever since. The first thing I “noticed” (as they say in Ignatian spirituality) was Jesus “immediately” put his disciples in the boat and sent them to the other side of the sea.

Wait a minute, I thought, that was intentional.

I recalled how Jesus was “immediately” led into the desert by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil for 40 days after his baptism. It was just after the dove descended upon him, the heavens parted, and the Father said, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am pleased.” (Mark 1:12)

I was reminded of how God said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family…” (Genesis 7:1a) Then, Noah endured a storm for 40 days that wiped out everything he once called home, and had to remain in the ark until the water receded for over a year, “because I have found you righteous [or blameless] in this generation.” (Genesis 7:1b)

I considered how God delivered his people from the oppression of Pharaoh, and personally escorted them on a 40 year journey through the desert to the Promised Land. Although there was a much shorter route, God charted their course through the desert because, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” (Exodus 13:17-18)

Finally, I thought of Job, who God called “blameless”, just before his livestock, servants, and all ten of his children were killed. (Job 1:8) After all of this affliction, Job was deeply grieved and angry, and God called still called him blameless. (Job 2:3) It was Job’s friends who insisted he must have done something wrong to cause such tragedy to unfold in his life. Instead of accompanying him in his grief, they they encouraged him to perceive the traumatic events as his fault, internalize shame, ruminate on “right and wrong” to determine the cause of his suffering, and to perform his way back into connection with God.

Then, in chapters 38-41, God chimed in. He spoke directly to Job “out of the storm”. Although Job’s circumstances had not changed, all of the doubts, ruminations, and compulsions to perform that Job was tempted with in the storm were completely consumed by the presence of God—rendering him willing and able to pray for the friends who persecuted him and to receive the vindication and restoration God was about to bring into his life.

As I sit here and type this from the public library in the desert where we now live, I look to my right and see a homeless man in a chair with bags of his belongings sitting next to him. Beneath me, is another homeless man on the 1st floor coughing loudly without covering his mouth. To my left is a man dressed in pajama pants pouring a protein shake into the feeding tube in his stomach. He answers his phone, and says in full volume, “Whattya need? I’m trying to get some food in me…” My desk up here on the mezzanine faces the window that looks out over the desert horizon while all this carries on around me. I can’t help but think of the time in my life that I sat in my office as a pastor of a university overlooking a sprawling campus of grand classroom buildings with tall pillars and marble floors. Now, there is nothing but brown dirt and rock as far as the eye can see.

Through the lens of the pain of everything I have lost, it can seem like the storm is my punishment and the desert is where God has brought my dreams to die—but, is that really something God would do? The stories of Jesus, Noah, the Israelites, Job, and the disciples tell me something entirely different. In each of these stories, God explicitly expressed his love and affirmation towards his people, and then demonstrated that love by enacting a plan of salvation that led them through landscapes and circumstances that would strengthen their faith, deepen the intimacy shared between them, and increase their dependency on Him alone. Not only are the desert and the storm a normal part of the spiritual journey, they can be the best route to healing from past trauma and reaching our Promised Land.