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Epiphany: Hope, Healing, and the Value of "Story Work" (Part 1)
74 Plays11 months ago
How does "looking back" or "reflecting" (as we did with the "examen" prayer format in a previous episode) help us look ahead to anticipate what God might be doing or want to do in our lives in the coming year? Perhaps the ancient holy day known as Epiphany might provide a clue or two.
Epiphany is a sacred day in the Christian tradition that marks the arrival of the Three Kings immortalized in the famous song (a/k/a the Three Wise Men ) at the place where the newborn baby Jesus lay. Their remarkable journey was an act of tremendous faith. And that faith was grounded both in careful study of past "signs and wonders" --as reflected in sacred texts and the movements of the stars--and also in hope, specifically that there might be something worth seeing, experiencing, or learning after a long and treacherous journey into a foreign land.
Join Chris and Wendy as they share reflections on what God has been doing in their lives (both recently and over 30+ years together) and what they are leaning into hope that he will do in 2024. The discussion is prompted by a contemplative consideration of Epiphany as described in Matthew 2:9-11, as well as a poem by Jan Richardson, "For Those Who Have Far to Travel." It also provides insight into the value of the "story work" that they do with clients during Nurture Counseling's individual counseling sessions, conflict coaching work, marriage and family enrichment seminars, and marriage intensives.
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Transcript
Introduction to Surviving Saturday Podcast
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome to Surviving Saturday, a podcast about holding on to hope in the midst of life's difficulties, disappointments, and dark seasons.
Easter's Role in Inspiring Hope
00:00:12
Speaker
Times like that remind us of the agony and despair the followers of Jesus felt on the Saturday of Easter weekend, in between the Friday on which he was crucified and the Sunday on which he rose from the dead.
00:00:23
Speaker
That someday forever changed the way that humans can relate to God. But what does it look like to be honest about the very real pain we experience in the in-between? To fervently cling to hope in the God who promised us his peace and his presence at times when he feels distant or even cruel.
Meet Wendy and Chris Osborne
00:00:40
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I'm Wendy Osborne, a licensed counselor in Charlotte, North Carolina. And I'm her husband, Chris, a marriage mediator, conflict resolution coach, and trauma-informed story work coach.
00:00:51
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Join us each episode for authentic conversations about how life not turning out as we'd expected has created the contextual soil for the growth of a tenacious hope in the resurrection and in a God who is still making all things new.
Reflections on New Year Promises
00:01:07
Speaker
Hey there folks and welcome to another episode of the Surviving Saturday podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Chris Osborne, and with me as always is my lovely bride, Wendy. Hello.
00:01:19
Speaker
We are coming to you today. It's just a little bit after the new year still. 2024 is still a little bit of, it's still fresh. It still has promise. It still has so much potential to unlock. And we had an opportunity this morning. We were with some friends who are spiritual directors, actually.
00:01:39
Speaker
And we were invited to a time of kind of rest and reflection. And really they encouraged us to consider, you know, what does it mean to look for God in this coming year? And so in our last episode, we talked a little bit about doing an exam and kind of a reflection back. Where do we see God speaking? Where do we hear from Him and meet Him over the course of the past year?
00:01:59
Speaker
This was a time that sort of built on that and was calling for some personal reflection and contemplation. But then, you know, with anticipation and hope, looking towards what's coming in the future, which everybody likes to do kind of around this time of
Passion for Story Work and Redemption
00:02:14
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year too.
00:02:14
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And part of what happened as we were discussing our experience coming out of it is it reminded us of why we're really passionate about what we would call story work. But that may be a turn that we throw around that not everybody's familiar with. Wendy, when we talk about story work and the kind of ways that we like to engage people in their stories and dealing with their lives, what do we mean? What are we talking about?
00:02:39
Speaker
To me, it is a practice of pursuing God's redemption. And so it includes looking back over the experiences we've lived to find the themes of evils, sabotage, and God's redemption. And those two things will often be very directly linked.
00:03:04
Speaker
But to do this, it means that we have to be willing to consider the details, often the minutia, of our lives, the specifics, the particularities. And it takes sharing those with a wise and a kind guide, or it can be a group of fellow travelers. But those people can help us read the themes of our lives,
00:03:31
Speaker
and identify pathways toward redemption and toward the freedom that Jesus offers us. That's a really well said. Can we unpack it just for a little bit? Yeah. Tell me what you mean when you say that the themes of evil sabotage and God's redemption often are linked. What is that? What can
The Journey of Evil to Redemption
00:03:51
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that look like?
00:03:51
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Yeah, so evil cannot take out God Himself. The battle there has already been declared victorious on God's behalf. But it can wreak havoc in the lives of God's people who bear His image.
00:04:08
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And so evil is as aware of our own specific designs as God is, probably often more aware than we are of our goodness and our dignity. And it will come after the best parts of us in order that we might question God, that we might turn against Him and turn against ourselves,
00:04:32
Speaker
those are the places that God longs to restore and to use us to bring his goodness into the world. And so in a way it's the redemption that you speak of involves understanding how evil has operated and the territory it's taken and then letting God transform that into
00:04:58
Speaker
You know, kind of that Joseph experience of, oh, though they made it for evil. I actually meant it for good. There's something different that comes out of it. I'm reminded as we talk about of the passage. I think it's in CS Lewis's book.
00:05:15
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I'm going to forget which one it is, but I think it's The Weight of Glory, but where there's a character who has a demon on their shoulder, a dragon that's just yelling at them, screeching them, destroying them. It's taking them out. It's ruined their life.
00:05:31
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and as the healing redemptive process happens as this person, I think they come into heaven, that small shrieking demon doesn't go away, it turns into this glorious stallion that the person rides off on. And so there's this transformation that happens of the worst of the pain and things that happen that can be, in the hands of God, turned into
00:05:56
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the source of great redemption and healing for yourself and for others. Yes. Does that capture some of it? Yes. Yes. And it sounds like that's this kind of thing you see happen in the therapy room frequently.
Granularity in Therapy and Truth Challenges
00:06:08
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All the time. All the time. And when it doesn't happen, people are hungry for it and then we have to wait on the spirit to choose the time to do the work. Yes.
00:06:20
Speaker
Well, and unpacking more of your definition just briefly, it involves getting granular into the details of not just like I could say for years I had a chaotic family household growing up, my parents divorced, my dad was gone. I knew on some level that was formative.
00:06:42
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But story work that I'm engaged in with kind of guides and with other people in the last few years has been very granular getting into what was it like to be that eight year old child who was asked to do this or who witnessed this? How did you feel? And you know, questions I would never ask myself. Like what was it like to be that kid? How do you feel towards that part of yourself? All of this.
00:07:07
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And the more specifically we can see evil's intention to devour, the more specifically we can see the power and the goodness of God to overcome it.
00:07:23
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Yes, and then part of so what we're talking about here too is I know a lot of people use the terminology these days my lived experience my experience or some people use the phrasing like my truth let me tell you my truth and all and you know the problem with the word truth is of course
00:07:39
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Uh, is it objective? Is it subjective? We get lost, go down bunny trails. Like, uh, you know, I have clients right now who want to get into, well, this is what really happened or this is what's true. And I'm like, well, okay, let's be careful because somebody else experienced that same scenario and they may not describe it the same way. What do we do then? Do we debate?
00:07:56
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whose experiences, right? Well, I remember even navigating or mediating arguments between our kids when they were little. Yes. And one would take center stage and tell everything. And I remember another one came to just sit and say, I'm going to sit right here. And when you want to know what really happened, ask me.
Living and Learning: A Reflective Distinction
00:08:21
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Because they had very different beliefs about what had just gone on between them.
00:08:26
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Well, and it bugged me when I was a young lawyer practicing too because I sort of had this idea there is the capital T truth and we can find it through the adversary process. And when I ran into repeatedly, no, we can't. I would finish a trial or a deposition or something way more confused than I started because I'm like, gosh, they sound like they believe that too. Like that whole idea about you'll find who the liar is and smoke them out and all that. This myth is nonsensical. So, um,
00:08:53
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Anyway, getting back to the idea though of lived experience, everybody has their lived experience for sure, but what this story work is calling us to is something a little deeper. I think I heard a great phrase for it recently, learned experience. In other words, have we taken notes on the themes, the patterns, have we paid attention to what's happened, have we learned from it, have we grown? Because many people can tell you their living experience, they can tell you their whole life story, but have we learned how we let God sit and tend to those parts of us?
00:09:23
Speaker
And so I love, for me it's been a joy to discover that this kind of work is both very individual, it sometimes invites me to sit with God alone, like we did today. I was born, you're not going to do anything else for two hours. But engage with this prompt, which we're going to get to in just a second, but engage with this and let Jesus just minister to you directly.
00:09:45
Speaker
One of the experiences I described having over the last year that was so helpful was this retreat where I got together with other people. But one of the instructions was spend time alone with God each day and just listen and don't read or do or accomplish anything. And it was powerful.
00:10:00
Speaker
And at the same time the invitation was to be in community with other people like you said that group of fellow travelers who could also pick out themes and that was so much fun to watch like I could pick up themes and other people's stories that I was completely just whipping and missing in my own and vice versa somebody else who we just helped see something then comes in to somebody else's story and they are like the person with the eyesight
00:10:22
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and the insight because they're coming from the outside.
Poetry and Personal Reflections
00:10:26
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And so what we wanted to do is, you know, wanted to just highlight the value of that aloneness and just sit with God and tend to yourself and tend to your relationship with Him and doing this in community. And what we want to do today in this episode is
00:10:47
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to talk a little bit, to share a little bit more about what that individual time was like for us today when somebody gives us a prompt. We share kind of what the prompts were and where we went with it.
00:10:57
Speaker
and how the themes of story are sort of interwoven with it. And so we'll start, I'll read a section, so we went for this rest and return kind of mini spiritual retreat and there were two prompts that were given to us. I'm gonna read the first part of a poem that was part of what we're asked to interact with. It's called For Those Who Have Far to Travel,
00:11:23
Speaker
and it's by a woman named Jan Richardson who has some great poetry collections that... Fabulous books of blessings and poetry. She was a young widow and I highly recommend her books. Yeah, I've been surprised at how just moving. Yeah, I found it. So I'm going to read the first part of this poem and then, Wendy, after that you'll read what you wrote sort of in reflection and response to that. Okay. So here's Jan Richardson's poem.
00:11:51
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If you could see the journey whole, you might never undertake it, might never dare the first step that propels you from the place you have known toward the place you know not. Call it one of the mercies of the road, that we see it only by stages as it opens up before us, as it comes into our keeping step by single step.
00:12:13
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There's nothing for it but to go, and by our going, take the vows the pilgrim takes, to be faithful to the next step, to rely on more than the map, to heed the signposts of intuition and dream, to follow the star that only you will recognize, to keep an eye for the wonders that tempt you from the way.
00:12:38
Speaker
All right. So I sat with that and wrote a reflection for the new year. Um, I've called it looking back to look ahead and it's fairly long. So it's fairly beautiful. So hang on to your New Year's Eve party hats. If you've still got them, if I had seen all that was to be ahead, I would have said, no, thank you to the journey.
00:13:09
Speaker
I would have said that I couldn't withstand the body shame which surfaced on my wedding night. How being naked and unashamed reads as an impossibility to my particular physical self.
00:13:24
Speaker
I would have told you that the anger which surfaced in my husband when he couldn't save me from all of my past pain and present insecurities would have taken me apart at the seams in such a way that would make me coming back together again a futile sort of project.
00:13:44
Speaker
I would have maintained that the pull on my husband towards pornographic images that promised soothing to him would have shoved me under the tsunami of body shame until I was lost at sea forever and eventually drowned.
00:14:01
Speaker
I would have been clear that the 14 hour cancer scary surgery my husband endured when we were 28 and I was alone and wondering if he'd still be alive to walk me through adult life would leave me paralyzed with anxiety and a parallel commitment to never again extend my heart for fear that it would be only and ultimately broken.
00:14:26
Speaker
If I had known that journeying with my mother-in-law through 14 years of cancer while I homeschooled three children was to be a part of the story, I would have said, I cannot do it. It is just too much.
00:14:42
Speaker
If I had seen ahead of time the ways depression and anxiety, body image and eating disorders, and intense bouts of anger would come to visit our family, I would have shut down the whole venture before it ever started. Probably good to save us and the rest of the world from our struggles, I'd have told you.
00:15:05
Speaker
If you had told me that I would still be contending with profound shame and deep insecurities over who I am in the world well into my 40s, I would have opted to stay in bed and avoid that whole storyline. That probably would have been at five years old, which would mean that my hibernation would be pushing five decades at this point.
00:15:31
Speaker
If I had known the amount of bitterness and distrust I carry, and the doubts that anyone, including Jesus, loves me no matter what, I would have said, you can't change what's true, just before turning away from you, grabbing my pillow overstuffed with ambivalence, and crying myself to sleep.
00:15:56
Speaker
If the decisions family members would make and the disconnection I'd feel so deeply at times were known to me then, I would have told you that I didn't think the effort would be worth it and I wouldn't be here writing now. But because I didn't know then what the minutes of life would look like along the way, I am here now.
00:16:20
Speaker
I bear scars and some still hot to the touch open wounds, but I am here. I have made it to the now. Both my body and my soul are marked by the battles and both have expanded as I have done what I would have told you I couldn't do.
00:16:39
Speaker
The truth is that I was right to feel my fears and my dread, to taste the futility and the powerlessness. But the truth is even more so that I wasn't left alone in the struggles or with my broken heart before or after. The stories I've lived have meant that I've been closely acquainted with evil. Yes, I've seen it up close.
00:17:07
Speaker
I've experienced the dark and thought I might never escape it smothering. But equally true is this fact. The stories I've traversed have also meant that all of my senses have been desperate for the light of Jesus.
00:17:24
Speaker
Before the starting gun of this thing called my life fired, I would have told you there was no use trying. I couldn't do it myself and I wasn't sure God would make a way that left me feeling safe and in good hands. I think I've pretty much believed that life is a bit of a test and a pass fail version at that. I've had the notion that God was watching to see how I'd handle things. If I'd be content to lay down happy,
00:17:54
Speaker
for holy if I'd be willing to exchange feeling safe for being a pleasing servant. What I've learned as I've endured what I would have said would end me is that he's been there every step of the way. Just like welding weakened metal makes the element stronger than it was in the first place,
00:18:17
Speaker
His allowance of me walking through cancer and addictions, mental illness and anger, loneliness and fear has grown me stronger and sturdier than I was before the journey began and than I ever could have become without all of these particular painstaking steps.
00:18:39
Speaker
It has taken this journey for me to see him rightly. A priestly King who leads me into the presence of all sorts of animate and inanimate enemies. And as one who binds my wounds while I do battle there, as I fight for my own heart while his spirit pulses through the veins of my soul.
New Beginnings After Tragedy
00:19:02
Speaker
I've learned that what I would have previously called tragic endings
00:19:07
Speaker
are actually the beginnings of new chapters, each new page raising the question of how tightly I'm willing to squeeze Jesus' hand as we journey together into more of what is completely unknown to me.
00:19:23
Speaker
As I anticipate this next trip around the sun together with him, I take courage knowing that along the way, I will lay the treasures that have been hidden in and recovered from my personal darkness at his feet. Each one being a unique and profound offering for the restoration he has given to my heart as my life has come apart at the seams over and over and over again.
00:19:52
Speaker
Thank you for coming Lord Jesus. I can't wait to see you again. Wow. Um, what does it feel like to read that? Um, it felt very tender, um, to write it and to read it. Like this stories that I mentioned by phrase,
00:20:17
Speaker
they they there are volumes behind the few words yeah yeah i'm struck by i mean i always i mean all of your gift of being very concise but when i just listen having walked alongside you with a lot of that just knowing what you packed in there like you didn't just sit down spit this out today
00:20:41
Speaker
based on what you learned today and what you could do today. There's so much that goes into being able to express that.
00:20:50
Speaker
Yeah, there were the times that I lived lots of those things, I had no words for them. Yeah, oh honey, that's especially powerful for you to phrase it that way, because I hadn't thought about that. There were times you literally had no words. Yeah. You couldn't speak to, you were in distress or you were feeling things, but you didn't, you had no way to communicate them, because I mean, we know that's part of your family story. They weren't welcome.
00:21:20
Speaker
from a young age. So for you to end up with this beautiful gift of words, I think it's pretty amazing. And it's really faith inspiring. It's definitely inspired my faith.
00:21:41
Speaker
You know, when I say I didn't have words, there were times that I didn't know the right words to name what was happening and to know what to call the pain or to name in a way that felt genuine to me.
00:22:00
Speaker
that Jesus cared about it. But there have been a few times in my life and you've been there for a couple of them where I literally went mute and I
00:22:16
Speaker
something was happening that was so scary that I literally could not form words.
Expressing Emotional Distress Physically
00:22:24
Speaker
And for a long time, I carried a lot of shame around that of what kind of person couldn't scream for help. Couldn't explain
00:22:36
Speaker
what has them so afraid. Yes. But I think it was my nervous system shutting down because I was overwhelmed and unable to stop what was happening. Yes, I think because I think as you're saying that the answer to your question what kind of person is a human person. Yeah. A human person who gets who feels and is honestly reckoning with
00:23:03
Speaker
harm and hurt. Um, that's literally a nervous system response that you described. The, the Broca's area, the language, the brain actually goes offline because it's not necessarily going to be helpful for survival. Right. You know, you're going to survival mode. Um, and I can only relate to that a little bit more. Like that was your journey was having no words and then learning to speak. And then the thing that always happens too is
00:23:29
Speaker
we misuse even as we are trying to heal. So in other words, you know, you would have words, sometimes you had words and you had lots of words and they were all coming out and there was, you know, there's a way, there's multiple ways to be dysregulated. And for me, the journey has been sort of the opposite of, oh, I always had lots of words. Words were my stock and trade and how I figured out how to navigate life. The more stressed I get, the more verbal I get.
00:23:51
Speaker
And for me, there's been a real journey to silence at times. And to just, can you not fill every second, both in my head, in a conversation, in a relationship, for me to actually let go of words, because they're what I used to spin and dance myself out.
00:24:12
Speaker
and to have a time period of few words. And I've had to get in touch with that feeling of overwhelm, but we'll talk about me later. And I think, you know, as you say that,
00:24:27
Speaker
you know, yeah, there were times when I first respected my voice enough to speak that my words often came with daggers because I was still trying to find a way to protect myself and I moved out of silence into words, but the words were not always
00:24:53
Speaker
loving or kind or holy for even my own redemption. Yeah. And so it's been a matter I think of my body learning to rest in Jesus goodness enough that I can speak
00:25:13
Speaker
And even if I am not heard or protected on a human level in some way, meaning by another person's words or dismissal, that I have the ability to trust that he is still there.
00:25:33
Speaker
and his arms are around me and his face is kind. And so my words don't have to be weapons that keep dangers at bay.
00:25:45
Speaker
That really resonates, because I'm remembering what the journey was like for me as somebody, one of my love languages, words of affirmation, which means one of the easiest ways to wound me is words as well. I take them to art. We can look back on that particular time period with greater compassion, partly because understanding both of our stories.
00:26:10
Speaker
and how I went to words and my words will make everything right is the lie that I bought. And for a good reason, because they do sometimes. But so when you're learning to have a voice and it's coming out all different kinds of ways, I'm freaking out because you were more in touch with your feeling and you had reason to have the feelings you had. At the time, it didn't feel that way though. Like we can look back, but I remember a particular moment
00:26:40
Speaker
somewhere probably after I'd started counseling where the counselor's working with me on, sometimes you don't have to have an answer. Or sometimes she's gonna say things and can you hear the essence? Can you hear the heart longing of what's there instead of freaking out about, you just said this, which is mainly, would you say is that fair? That's the energy I often brought was, you just said this and I'm freaking out about that. And I remember this moment at our house on Summerlin,
00:27:06
Speaker
where I think you said something to the effect of, you were really distraught, don't remember what by, and I remember you said, I can just see why some women just walk away from it all.
00:27:16
Speaker
I remember that I remember exactly where we were and I remember that I for like the first time didn't freak out over that because I was learning that you know the way to freak me out and get my nervous system going crazy is Threatened to abandon or not be there but instead of hearing that as a threat and and getting fixated you can't say that that's not right That's you know a lot of the injury I would have brought I remember I just held you
00:27:40
Speaker
It was supernatural, because this is not naturally my skill. But I just held you, and I heard, oh, you're really upset. And I think at the time I was overwhelmed, and I was feeling abandoned, that my heart wasn't mattering. Yes. And so my words would get very extreme.
00:28:07
Speaker
to communicate that. And so when you were willing to just come in and physically embrace me, that provided such relief because I felt your presence in such a tangible way. Yes. And I had to like, it felt like learning a whole new muscle or skillset and maybe it was relearning something that I had possibly known, but
00:28:34
Speaker
law school and law practice had trained out of me because most of my life was, oh, let's engage those words. You said bad words, you said betraying words or abandoning words. And so I'm gonna make you pay for that in some
Wendy's Journey and Story Work's Impact
00:28:48
Speaker
way. And I remember that being a turning point moment for us. Like, oh wait, she didn't really mean that. Like she's leaving now. She's expressing a really strong feeling and I can be okay
00:29:02
Speaker
with that happening and not lose my head. Right. Because what would happen when you would have a strong reaction, which makes sense in hindsight that you would. Um, but at the time it made me believe all over again, it was futile to try to use my voice. Yes. Yes. And so we both,
00:29:27
Speaker
were at risk of staying captive to old patterns that you would use a lot of words and I would use none but inside we were both broken hearted and boiling with anger. So what I just want to kind of celebrate as we draw this episode to a close is
00:29:47
Speaker
Yeah, the redemption that's literally happening and that the people who sit with you get to experience Because you bring them wisdom you bring them words you bring that safe presence But I won't make sure people know it's hard-fought. It is not easily one that you got there No, it's not
00:30:06
Speaker
And that's the hope that diving into these particulars, and I remember some of the stories that you've processed, and some of them we'll probably share in future episodes, but where silence was how your body responded, because you're small and you're in a terrifying situation, all that, and just God's deliverance from that is nothing short of,
00:30:30
Speaker
a beautiful miracle that I want to watch and help happen. But I'm grateful. Thank you for your part in it. Yeah. Well, and thank you for the grace for when I was not playing a good part in it. If you hear nothing else from what we bring in this podcast, folks, it's that marriage is not a course to be run perfectly by knowing all the steps and knowing all the turns. It's not
00:30:58
Speaker
A set of techniques you can learn to get it all right, as I'll share, that getting it all right can be really dangerous and harmful. But it is a journey that God comes along with us on. And gosh, isn't it great? He meets us each where we are and helps us grow and develop into Christlikeness in the ways that we each individually need
Next Episode Preview and Support Services
00:31:20
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to.
00:31:20
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Yes. So we're going to stop there and we're going to pick up next time, Chris, with some of what you took away from your contemplation this morning because I think it's really important and I'd like you to share it. I will look forward to doing that. We'll see you on the next episode of Surviving Saturday.
00:31:45
Speaker
The Surviving Saturday podcast is brought to you by Nurture Counseling PLLC, a counseling teaching and training center based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. We help families flourish one story at a time. Nurture Counseling provides counseling, counseling intensive for couples, conflict resolution coaching, story work groups, seminars, workshops, and retreats to provide a safe and welcoming context for exploring the agonizing experiences of pain, brokenness, and evil that disrupt our lives.
00:32:12
Speaker
and that God often uses to nurture deeper trust and intimacy with Him and with each other. You can find us online at www.nurturecounseling.net