It’s a holiday. The school has been closed for the week leading up to Easter and will be closed the week after in celebration of the death and resurrection of our Lord. The kids are all gone and only the administration staff is working. The campus is silent and void of the rambunctious, energetic life which usually fills it.
It’s mid morning. The sun is inching its way across the sky, the birds are chirping cheerfully in the surrounding trees, and just outside the gate, the locals are passing by. Village Of Hope sits in the middle of Kauma village, so locals are carrying on their day-to-day life, making furniture, selling vegetables, doing laundry, tending to their children, and transporting goods past the school gate.
Malawi is a culture based richly in community. Many of the houses in the village are made of mud bricks and metal or thatched roofs and are spaced close together. The voices inside one house carry clearly into another, so there is very little privacy. Neighbors sit outside their homes with each other, doing the chores, watching the children, and sharing the beautiful and the messy. It’s common for drivers of cars or motorcycles to stop in the middle of the road to talk to their friend or family member who is walking by, because community is prioritized over efficiency or destination. There is a deep feeling of belonging, of truly being known, and though there may be a lack in many material items that we may deem essential, there is certainly no lack in kinship.
Jeremiah and I have experienced just a sliver of this kinship in our small group, which we call growth group. Growth groups meet once a week and were developed through the church we have been attending. We meet at each other’s homes and share life together, talking through thoughts on the sermon the previous week. Our group consists of locals and fellow international missionaries, a unique and beautiful blend of culture which reveals deeper insight into the character and image of God.
Attending growth group is one of my favorite parts of the week, as I experience the tangible presence of God every gathering through my friendships with the other participants. Last night, our group was small, intimate, just Jeremiah and I, and three others. We knew little of the depth of questions that would be asked us, and perhaps if we did our group would have been smaller, but God knew just what we needed, and knew who needed to be there together last night.
The sermon on Sunday was about Jesus’ brokenness. We studied the verse where He cried out on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and pastor shared that we should carry our brokenness like Jesus did- towards the Father, and not away from Him. As our small group reviewed the passage, we recognized that Jesus was in great distress and anxiety before the cross, begging his disciples to stay up and pray with Him because His soul was “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Matt. 26:38). In addition, Luke records in 22:44 that, “being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.” In the hours leading up to His crucifixion, Jesus’s spirit was in anguish, knowing what was to come to Him, but even in His emotional brokenness, and shortly after, in His physical brokenness, Jesus was obedient to God.
We sat in silence for a bit, soaking in the depths of Jesus’s pain and the magnitude of His submission. And I struggled to wrap my head around His emotional anguish. I was equally convicted and amazed. So often, I use my emotional pain as an excuse for my disobedience, but at the pinnacle of Jesus’s emotional pain (a level I have never experienced, I might add) He chose to be obedient despite it.
The final question of the night caught us all off guard. “Share your brokenness with each other and pray together.” And though brief, there was a slight moment of panic, as each individual struggled to decide how deep they should go, if they were going to say the platonic “things are hard, but they’ll get better,” or truly be honest and real with where they were at. As is so often in these cases, the first to go sets the stage for the depth of the answer, and our courageous friend went first, beginning to tear up before the words even left her mouth. And like a domino effect, we all followed, not dwelling, but genuinely sharing our struggles and genuinely listening to each other. Nobody offered platitudes, nobody attempted to give any solutions, we just sat together in our brokenness and were present, just as Jesus had asked His disciples to be.
Nobody’s brokenness got “solved” last night. Nobody walked away feeling like they had answers to their pain. But nobody left feeling lonely either. On the contrary, we knew we were all experiencing the same thing. And we knew Jesus Himself had endured His own pain in humanity. We prayed for each other in faith, we bore each other’s burdens, and we recognized that there is only One who holds the answers and the comfort that our hearts are seeking. We left with the affirmation that we are not alone and that we would be seeking the Father on each other’s behalf, as we have been called to do.
I’m at such a deep peace this morning. In the middle of fierce battles, when holding my own sword is becoming tiring from the fatigue, I know that my brothers and sisters stand beside me, strengthening me through encouragement and prayer, and that I get the ability to do the same for them. And the best part about it is that in so doing, we look and act like Christ.
I pray this season, in the middle of the celebration and the wild joy of Christ’s resurrection, that you don’t overlook the pain He endured for you, and that you don’t sweep your own pain under the rug. Jesus understands your brokenness, and so do your friends and family. Your brokenness does not disqualify you. I pray you would be able to look your brokenness in the face, as the Lord did, and submit it back to the Father and to the community around you. I pray that you find the courage to be real about your brokenness to your tribe, without fear of what others may think or how they may respond, and I pray that that community will bear those burden with you, being humble to recognize they may not have the answer, but being rooted in joy and confidence that the Father will respond in due time. And in the meantime, I pray obedience over all of us, even obedience to the point of death.
Praise be to God for His indescribable gift!
Zikomo,
Diana
Our First Journey Together 