I stole the title of this post from Scott Sauls’ wonderful book with the same title. I know, I haven’t written in almost a year and I start back by taking someone else’s work — not a great sign?!

You may know that the last several months of my life have by far been the most challenging I have ever gone through. My family and I experienced a sudden upheaval of our lives, forcing us to face new realities, move, start new jobs all the while trying to keep it together for James (my two-and-a-half year old son). I have been scared, mad, sad, hurt. It has impacted me emotionally, physically and spiritually too. This has been the most challenging 60 days of my life.

There have been blessings along the way as well, and I am going to get to that, but I think this whole despair, anguish and turmoil thing deserves a little more of my time than I am normally comfortable giving it. I don’t know about you, but I like the sunny, positive, easy-to-see-blessings sort of days. Who doesn’t? But it’s not just that I like them, I sometimes catch myself feeling that they are supposed to happen if I’m living “right.”

I was raised in a type of Christianity that said if I pray enough, read the Bible enough, go to church enough, that everything will work out. Wow, were those people wrong! And wow, did that cause such pain for me (and so many others) who think that we are wrong because of this 1+1, over simplified version of Christianity.

Barbara Brown Taylor wrote a book that was life-changing for me when I first read it. I found it in the throes of depression and anxiety, and I think it might have been the only reason I kept believing that God was with me, even in that darkness. The book is titled Learning to Walk in the Dark, and it invites us to explore a “lunar spirituality,” where we embrace God in the dark times of our lives as well as the bright, cheery ones. I’ve thought about this before and if you’re feeling this theme, click here to read some thoughts on that.

Scott Sauls in his book Beautiful People Don’t Just Happen thinks similarly to Taylor. He writes, “When Christians say yes to positive, happy feelings but no to distressed feelings that reveal our hurt, we risk becoming carbon copies of a culture that is prone to sweep pain under the rug. In doing so, we become codependent relationally, and anemic spiritually and emotionally.”¹

That’s a really big thought, so I encourage you to take a second and read that last sentence again. Then take a breath and soak it in.

When we don’t “say yes” to our hurting moments, feelings or seasons, we are shells of ourselves. In fact, if our goal is to be more like God, like Jesus, then if we don’t fully lean in to these hard moments, we are missing the mark. When Israel disobeyed God, Yahweh got angry (Ex. 32:1-10, Neh. 13:8). When Jesus’ friend Lazarus died, he showed fury and then wept (John 11:35). When we are not ourselves, even the Holy Spirit is said to feel grief (Eph. 4:30-32). The point is, if it’s good enough for God, then shouldn’t it be good enough for us? If God has raged, if Jesus has been filled with sorrow, if the Holy Spirit knows sadness, shouldn’t that mean that we are permitted and even supposed to feel those things too?

When all of the turmoil began more than a month ago, a good friend and someone I consider a mentor told me: “feel it all but lean on your friends and family. We are here for you.” I’m not sure there’s been a day that’s gone by where I haven’t thought of those words. “Feel it all…” Feel the bitterness and anger, the grief and pain, the loss and sadness. Feel it all and don’t try to go it alone.

One more quote from Sauls. He says, “When you are laid flat and there’s nothing you can do except beg for help, Jesus meets you in that place… being awesome is not [our] calling… God has foremost called [us] to be loved, to be receptive to [God’s] love, and to find [our] rest in [God’s] love.”²

I had planned on reflecting on the blessings of this season as well — I really have felt incredible blessings in the midst of this pain. But I think that would miss the point. For now, I want to encourage you, or maybe this is more for me, that it is OK to feel it all. To feel despair, depression, addiction, anxiety, sadness, rage, anger, grief and all of the “dark emotions” that you too may have been told are not permissible for a “good” Christian. But that’s just wrong. It’s so wrong.

So feel it all. AND lean on your friends and family. Lean on your church. Lean on Scripture and good books. Lean on that podcast that helps you feel all the feelings. Lean on whoever and whatever helps you remember that it is OK to feel pissed, hurt and sad. It is OK to have big feels because we need more people who aren’t afraid of feeling it all. AND we need each other if we are going to do this. Don’t try to feel it all by yourself. Reach out and lean in. There are beautiful people who haven’t gotten that way on accident, they don’t “just happen.”

There’s an old story that goes like this:

A man is walking down a street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can’t get out.

A doctor passes by and the man shouts up, “Hey you! Can you help me out?” The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole, and moves on. Then a priest comes along and the man shouts up, “Father, I’m down in this hole. Can you help me out?” The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole, and moves on.

Then a friend walks by. “Hey, it’s me,” the man calls out. “Can you help?” And then the friend jumps in the hole. The man says, “Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here.”

The friend says, “Yeah, but I’ve been down here before … and I know the way out.”

I’m in a hole, but I’m not alone. It’s getting crowded down here because I have this amazing tribe of people who keep jumping in with me, telling me they aren’t willing to let me go through this alone. If you are in a hole, reach out, I’ll jump in. Know that you are not alone. Thanks be to God.

Grace & Peace, Cole

P.S. The next post may be titled something like “Annoying Hope” and in that I’ll talk about the blessings of this hard season. If this has felt heavy, sorry I’m not sorry 🙂 But seriously, I’ll reflect more on the joys of this season in the next week or so. Stay tuned and thank you for jumping in the hole with me.

1. Scott Sauls, Beautiful People Don’t Just Happen: How God redeems regret, hurt, and fear in the making of better humans, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Books, 2022), 150. ↩︎
2. Ibid., 162-163. ↩︎