I Don’t Want to Waste This Emptiness

Every morning I would step out under the East African sun onto the piece of heaven called Haven of Peace Academy. I could look out past the palm trees onto the expanse of the Indian Ocean, enveloped in that beauty. Everywhere I walked I was surrounded by children; everywhere I turned there was someone to talk to, a parent, a teacher, a bouncing, dancing first grader. I ate lunch with a Brit and a Dane and a Zimbabwean; every conversation was alive with culture and rich diversity and perspective. My days were full of problems to solve and noise and laughter and light.

Now every day I wake up in my small apartment and take the kids to school. I sit on my couch and am bombarded by the silence. I face the computer all day and my only interactions with other people are through that screen. I fix myself lunch and eat with a magazine. I go to the grocery store and never recognize anyone. I go to church and few know my name. I am alone, and I am unknown. And inside is a yawning emptiness. 

The deaths in my life this year line up like tombstones. The death of my self-respect; being forced to leave Tanzania early engulfed my head in shame. The death of feeling competent, knowledgeable, relevant; starting a new job is like becoming a toddler again. The death of being known; the wealth of my relationships in Tanzania took twenty years to build. I lift my weary eyes to climbing that mountain over again and it feels insurmountable.

Into this fog came a pinpoint of light: the book J-Curve: Dying and Rising with Jesus in Everyday Life by Paul Miller. Miller writes, Death is the launching pad for resurrection. That’s why enduring through the deaths is so crucial. When we escape the dying, we miss the resurrection.

Our lives are meant to mirror the pattern of Jesus–descending into death, and rising in resurrection. The descent can appear in many ways–through loss, humiliation, depression. But whatever it looks like, the point is that there is purpose in the descent, and it is always to identify us with Christ. 

Have you ever read a book that speaks to you so deeply that when you finish it, you immediately want to read it again? J-Curve has easily joined my list of the most-transformative books I’ve read. And perhaps, in this year of devastating loss, hurt feelings, wounded egos, and ongoing emptiness, it might transform you too.  

If dying and rising with Christ is the new normal, then when we encounter dying, we don’t have to collapse or withdraw into ourselves. We can be weak, even depressed. This frees us from our tendency to be depressed about our depression. Because depression avoidance is such a high value in our culture, when people are depressed, they think something is wrong. It’s a relief to realize that if we’re dealing with hard things, we should be depressed. Jesus models depression for us in his Passion as he is overcome by the weight of his coming death. (Miller)

In a culture that so despises negative emotion, I don’t need to be afraid of grief or shame. My goal shouldn’t be to just do whatever I can to do away with these bad feelings. I can sit here in the emotion and remind myself that through the very things I hate, God is knitting my will to his.

If rising is embedded in dying, then not running from the customized dying that God permits in our lives is essential for resurrection. That’s why endurance is the glue of the Christian life. To taste resurrection, we need to endure the death. An early exit cripples resurrection. (Miller)

This means that I don’t need to be so quick to defend myself when I have been wrongly accused. It means I don’t need to fret over what people might be thinking about me. It means that I don’t need to assume that there is something wrong with this emptiness. In fact, it’s exactly where God wants me to be.  

As important as faith is, unless we are actively reenacting Jesus’s life, pride will regrow. Boasting is removed in principle at the cross; in practice, it is removed as we re-enact the cross. To see Jesus, we must do Jesus. The dying came from outside of me, but the rising was in me: a humbled spirit. (Miller)

What’s counter-intuitive about this way of thinking is that it actually gives my emotions less power over my life. It makes me less inclined to sit in rumination over people’s opinions. There is less of a hard shell of defensiveness during conflict. I lose the desire to avoid humiliation at all costs. 

Because the more familiar we are with the dying and rising of Jesus as a way of inhabiting life, the more capacity we have to absorb slights, discouragements, and weakness. We do life with a lighter touch. (Miller)

Seeing pain as a way of identifying with Christ also allows me to be less afraid of loss, which thus allows me to be more willing to love. Miller quotes C.S. Lewis, who wrote “If you don’t want to feel sad, then don’t love anything, not even a dog.” 

If all of life is orchestrated by our Father, then we can receive what the Father brings. (Miller)

As I look at the broken pieces of my country lying around me, the church’s soul rendered in two, I can’t help but wonder that every single one of us needs the words of this book–which really, is a picture of the life of Jesus. 

Can we drink the cup of defeat, of humiliation, of loss–willingly and joyfully gulp it down–because we know it will make us more like Christ? Can we drink with hope, knowing that in order to experience resurrection, we must first experience death? 

When the strong die to their rights, they strengthen the faith of the weak. When powerful people lower themselves in love, they create a Jesus community. (Miller)

I don’t want to waste this emptiness. Because the resurrection is coming.