Season 5 Episode 3: Carol Collier On Lament: How to Cry Out to God in Suffering
Brenda (00:04.694)
So Alex, we're having conversational counseling conversations. Well, that's maybe I should have just said counseling conversations with dear saints who have suffered well and in doing so have been used by God to help others. And we know we're going to help our listeners as well. And so it's my delight to introduce Carol Collier to our audience today.
Brenda (00:34.708)
crossed for a short season, but Carol's one of those people that just really made a lasting impression on me. And Carol is no stranger to suffering. In fact, when I met her she was in the middle of part of her suffering story and I think that's what actually drew me to her in such a unique way was knowing that and seeing how she was walking with Jesus and how he was carrying her. And
Brenda (01:05.428)
and says that lament is one of her life's companions. And so with that in mind, Carol, we just want to welcome you to Conversational Counseling and want to thank you for being willing to come on today. And we're gonna let you share your story and then we want to have some conversations about lament and what you've learned and how what it is and how it's impacted you and how it can
Brenda (01:34.488)
being with us today.
Carol Collier (01:37.611)
Well, thank you for inviting me into this very special space. I'm glad to be here and to be able to share what God has been for me in a very difficult journey and so it is a privilege to be here and thank you. Thank you for inviting me.
Brenda (01:59.786)
Well, we thought we would just start off with you sharing about your suffering story to give our listeners an opportunity just to know, you know, what is it that has brought you into this realization of the importance of lament that has been so life-changing for you because it's not where we want to go oftentimes, but it is where God leads us in His faithfulness.
Carol Collier (02:18.462)
Mm-mm.
Well, as my husband and I were approaching our 60th birthday and also celebrating 40 years of marriage, there was a real sense that both of us had that we were about to come into our glory years. That everything that had been a part of our life for 40 years of marriage was in ministry. Scott and I were ministry people, and even though we both had full-time jobs that were not in ministry, we didn't have hobbies.
ministry together. And so there was so much that those 40 years together held and we felt like we were really coming into what we called our glory years that we were going to be able to spend time together in ways that we hadn't because we had been so busy with life, raising children, other people's children, you know all of that. And so we were, our children had a 40, 48,
anniversary 60th birthday little dinner for us and it was just this time where they were blessing us and It's just imprinted in my mind like I can just experience that evening all over again and that was towards the end of 2014 and then January 2015, you know here we are. We're so excited and Scott lost his job and it was a shock He'd been in the industry for 30 years and it was
Carol Collier (03:52.577)
one of those where you take a 60-year-old man and he is no longer as viable in the corporate world and so he was really displaced. It was just such a shock and it was really for him a very traumatic experience. So that was January 2015 and by the end of 2016, really the fall of 2016, he began to
led to him being seen by a neurologist and at the end of 2016 he was diagnosed with ALS. And so the loss of the job really was an anchor that was pulled up in our lives, a very, very important anchor, that of stability, financial stability. And it never went back down. I think that there's just those things in life that are not. There is no closure. There is no resolve.
And so, and then we're thrust into a health crisis that with ALS, there is one trajectory and one only, and it's towards death. There's really nothing to be done, and you just manage the decrease of mobility, the decrease of everything. So that just, again, turned our world upside down, and we needed to move, we needed to find a home that would accommodate Scott.
as he declined. And so those years from really 2015 until his death, the end of 2019, were just this constant movement under my feet. And I often described it as I was thrown into an angry sea and I couldn't see where I was. I'd lost my navigational tools. There was no land in sight. And nothing, it just, everything just kept moving and shaking. And so, of course,
Carol Collier (05:52.597)
passes away and then we go into COVID. And so that year was isolating for me. And here I am in a brand new life and the world stops. And then the end of 2000, it was August, 2022, our daughter Suzanne, 35 years old, perfectly healthy and robust got COVID and she died. And it was just, again, I remember standing at her bedside
Brenda (05:59.886)
Mm-hmm.
Carol Collier (06:22.217)
Lord, how can I be standing at the bedside of another person who is struggling to breathe and dying? And so it was just again my world just rocking and so it just seemed like for so many years nothing stopped moving and it was all just one hit after another. And so here I am on 2023
Brenda (06:27.872)
Hmm
Carol Collier (06:52.057)
The grief is not so loud. It's a little more calm and quiet. And I'm able to begin to see where my feet are. And so it's been really the decade of my 60s. I'm 68. I look at it and go, sometimes I go, well, that was a bust, you know? And it certainly didn't go the way that I thought. You know, the glory years that I envisioned never did happen. And so having to learn
Alex (07:12.502)
Mm-hmm.
Carol Collier (07:22.017)
that mean? What was I hearing from the Lord when I thought I was hearing that I was coming into my glory years? And bringing that question to him, like what is it then if this isn't what I thought it was going to be? So I'm still journeying that. He is revealing to me and his character and also some purposes for my life. And so I'm very thankful to be in this role.
Carol Collier (07:52.317)
space rather than in the narrow space of very acute grief.
Alex (07:59.997)
Hmm Carol, Ed Welch says that sometimes
When we sit with another person in their story, we feel like we need to take off our shoes because we're on Holy ground. And it is Holy ground to hear your story and to sit in that much grief coming so fast. The waves is a great, the tossing sea is a great visual picture of the last eight years. And I just appreciate the willingness
Brenda (08:10.283)
Mm-hmm.
Carol Collier (08:10.667)
Holy ground, yes.
Alex (08:34.699)
bring that the depth of that grief and the depth of that Disorientation because one thing I've realized about myself over the last few years is I feel a lot of shame when I feel confused and Disoriented and I don't want to talk about it And so I really do appreciate that it's not easy to share these places Where our legs have been swiped out from under us. So thank you and
Alex (09:04.679)
I think we're already hearing probably even some of the lines you've used in lament because lament has become precious to you in this season. So would you tell us how you define lament and then why you think lament is important for us as believers?
Carol Collier (09:14.553)
Mm-hmm.
Carol Collier (09:24.339)
Well, I would define it as holy complaint with a direction. So it's not that I'm just sitting in complaint with ambiguity. It has a direction and that direction is towards a person and that is Jesus Christ. And so even though when we read the laments and the Psalms, and one-third of the
Alex (09:28.62)
Mm-hmm.
Carol Collier (09:53.173)
Psalms are Psalms of lament and what's so remarkable to me is that this was the nation of Israel's hymn book that was their song book so they sang lament and they were familiar with the language of lament and there's one psalm 88 that has no resolution there is no good news at the end of it is dark and that is to me an invitation that we can come
Alex (10:00.841)
Mm-hmm.
Carol Collier (10:22.867)
without needing to have the answers. We don't need to have, we don't have the answers. We also don't need to demand the answers. That sometimes there is no light at the end of the tunnel, but a lament is, it begins in faith, it remains in faith, and it continues in faith. And even when...
there seems to be a lost connection between me and God. Because God is not an instantaneous gratifier. He is not. He waits in silence, sometimes silence on his end. And that's very important. That space of sala, the pause, the silence, is sometimes the most important space to remain in. And so often we want to move out of it very quickly.
We want to know what's the next steps, what is the plan, and when there is none, that is when we have the opportunity to really encounter God with an intimacy that is so remarkable that you cannot explain it until you have actually been there and experienced it. So, it is lament, it is biblical. We find it in the Psalms, of course, Lamentations.
Carol Collier (11:46.285)
Romans, the groaning, the groaning that the earth is groaning, we are groaning, lament is all through the scriptures. And so it is the path that God has given for the faithful in their times of great distress. So that's how I would define it.
Brenda (12:07.53)
Mmm gosh all that is so good. I was taking notes thinking oh I'm gonna gotta remember that gotta remember that. I've heard you say that you know we're accustomed to expressing our faith in joyful praises.
Alex (12:08.06)
Yeah.
Brenda (12:20.802)
But I love when you say, but God has opened up a place for us to bring all the sad and hard emotions. And I think a lot of times for Christians that feels very unspiritual, very faithless instead of faith filled. And so I love your definition, a holy complaint with the direction toward Jesus. And then this idea of just say, well, I mean, I read the psalm so often I go, say, well, let's read the next psalm. Like there's no pause. There's no stop. It's just like, okay, well, that's just a word and let's move on.
(12:43.651)
Mm-hmm. Like there's no pause? Yeah.
Alex (12:44.966)
No.
Brenda (12:50.736)
that's just a really good reminder that there's a reason why God asked us to pause to rest. Alex and I talk a lot about rest, about pausing, about waiting on the Lord because we tend to be such doers and moving forward you know frantically and quickly as we go. So yeah.
Carol Collier (12:58.859)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (13:10.906)
Yeah, and I...
I was thinking, Carol, that so often we don't connect, lament with being an act of faith because the words that we're saying often don't sound faith-filled. They sound really, I mean, if we're lamenting right, it's going to sound harsh and raw and very unspiritual.
Carol Collier (13:26.738)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (13:41.875)
words but because of the direction that they're moving it is an act an act of faith because it's moving to God and not our backs turned away from him but towards him it's an act of faith
Carol Collier (13:47.924)
Mm-hmm.
Carol Collier (13:54.059)
Yes, yes, yeah, I thought about that and you know, there was a point.
more than one point. There was not just one point, but where I was very, I was exhausted, I was frustrated. There was just a flood of emotions. And I had a few hours to myself. I had a caregiver who was with Scott so that I could get out. And I was meeting someone for lunch and it was pouring down rain and I couldn't find a parking space. And I was
Carol Collier (14:33.509)
fragile and I got out of the car and I'm you know, I'm just You couldn't help but be drenched and I stood on a downtown street and yelled at God. I was so angry and Soon afterwards. I said, you know Lord, I I'm done. I'm done I'm letting go if I fall I fall if I fail I fail. I really don't even care anymore and It it was not
moment of surrender, but it was a surrender of my soul that I was letting go. And what I saw in that now that I can look back is that really required a deep assurance that God is who he says he is. That I am so safe with him. I am so loved by him that if I let go, I will be caught. And I was. I
Alex (15:20.472)
Mm-hmm.
Carol Collier (15:33.409)
arms of steadfast love. I didn't feel it necessarily in that moment, but I think my soul knew it. And I realized too that my grip is not the point. You know, it's not my grip on Him, it's His grip on me. And so in that, what happened in the depths of my being was that I have an assurance that God is who He says
Alex (15:48.046)
Mm.
Carol Collier (16:03.329)
is, and that His love, His perfect divine love, is so much greater than I could imagine, that it has nothing to do with my ability to earn it or to keep it. It's so secure in the work and life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that I have nothing to fear. So that was what happened in that moment, even though cognitively I could not have given you the theology for that.
Alex (16:32.177)
Mm-hmm.
Carol Collier (16:33.749)
But it has given me a deep assurance that I didn't have before.
And it is, I had said this to Brenda a little earlier, I'm not unshakable. If I get a phone call today that something tragic has happened, I will be shaken. Jesus is unshakable. And that is why this holy complaint needs to have a direction. Otherwise we are really, really despairing. And so, um, it is remarkable what God is doing in those depths.
Alex (17:00.791)
Mm-hmm.
Carol Collier (17:12.177)
can't feel it or even when we cannot give a theological explanation in the moment but something is happening and it's deeply transforming.
Brenda (17:17.13)
Yeah. Yes.
Alex (17:23.117)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (17:23.946)
Yes, I like to say that comfort transforms us in a way that conviction and encouragement don't. Like you said, there's an experiential knowledge of God when you're crying out. Like, you don't understand what's happening, but God is, through the Holy Spirit in your inner being, convincing you of His love for you. And that's just supernatural. That is just something we can't explain. So, Carol, one of the things that I love that you say is that lament should be a spiritual discipline, not just something we learn to get ready for, you know, the bad times.
Carol Collier (17:29.484)
Yeah.
Alex (17:29.862)
Mm-hmm.
Carol Collier (17:39.607)
Mm-hmm. It is.
Brenda (17:53.84)
Can you explain what you mean by that? Why you think it's a spiritual, should be a spiritual discipline we practice?
Carol Collier (17:56.37)
Mm-hmm.
Carol Collier (18:00.711)
Well, I think that if we will allow ourselves to really look at the grand narrative of creation, fall, redemption, restoration,
then we will see that we have a more realistic view of God's world. We will know where are we? Where are we in this crazy, very chaotic world? Well, we're very much living in the brokenness of sin and evil, both in the world and in ourselves. And so we have a lot to groan about.
lot. We don't like to groan. We don't like to be reminded of what is broken. And so the reality is, and we know this from, you know, Romans, is that the whole earth is groaning and we groan. And so lament should not be a stranger to us. It should be something that
Carol Collier (19:18.689)
what is happening in this world rather than try to explain it. And I think that there's a propensity in all people. I see it a lot in Christianity because that's my world, is we want to be able to understand and explain things. We want to give be able to give reason for why these things are happening and you know
Carol Collier (19:49.555)
Let's learn to groan. Let's...
make friends with our groaning because in the groaning is where we find God's, not His purposes always, although we know the great purpose of restoration, but we enter into the reality of God's timeline for us. We are not yet in restoration.
Carol Collier (20:23.697)
and thank God there is daily redemption and restoration, just not in the ultimate sense. So I think that when we enter into lament, intentionally we are agreeing with God that things are really, really messed up. And people are really hurting, and we're really hurting, the world is hurting, and so I think it really is coming into agreement with Him. So I think that that's one reason why.
Alex (20:41.725)
Hmm.
Carol Collier (20:52.917)
practicing lament, not just waiting for the just in case it happens or it has happened, but actually preparing because it will happen and is happening. But I also, and this is something I've been thinking about lately because I'm sitting with a woman right now who's going through a lot of upheaval in her life and turmoil and one of her complaints is that you know the church doesn't seem to know what to do with it and people don't know what to do.
Alex (21:04.987)
Yeah.
Carol Collier (21:23.258)
And I thought, how do we...
short of creating a program for people to learn how to come alongside hurting people, what if instead we practiced lament, that we got very comfortable with sitting in those spaces, that we ourselves knew what it was like to lament. And I really wonder if that's not a direction for the church, is that we actually begin to make it a spiritual practice
them into a program. We don't necessarily send them to a counselor, but that we are able to be with them in their sorrow, in their lament, in their brokenness, and have that we're accustomed to it. This is a place that we have traveled ourselves. So I think it's a really important spiritual discipline that I would like to see move to the forefront, especially coming out of such a mournful, sorrowful time of COVID.
Alex (22:09.192)
Yeah.
Carol Collier (22:25.981)
all kinds of upheaval in our society, our culture, our world. So those are some directions I've been thinking about as to the importance of lament as a spiritual practice.
Alex (22:37.725)
Yeah, I love the idea that Lament is agreeing with God.
Brenda (22:44.271)
Mm-hmm.
Carol Collier (22:44.448)
Mm.
Alex (22:44.689)
Because I think so many times we think we're saying something we're not supposed to. And the reality is we're saying what's true. We're saying the lament to me is we're saying the truth of, God, this is not how you made it to be. And this is my reality and this is not what you intended this to be. We weren't made for this death, this decay, this sin.
Carol Collier (23:01.759)
right.
Alex (23:14.763)
pain and so it's I love that idea of we're agreeing with him we're coming to his side and we're saying what he would say about it and I really love the idea that lament as a practice enables us to sit with people who are suffering we can't we won't go to those places with someone else if we won't
go there first alone with God. We just will resist it. And I think we've all had experiences with people who when we tell them, maybe even just a small part of our suffering story, we feel them resist. We feel them try to redirect us to put the red bow on and tie it up and make it look really pretty. And it leaves us feeling so empty and feeling so disconnected.
Carol Collier (24:00.645)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (24:14.543)
love the idea that if we put this into practice it changes the way that we come together corporately and one-on-one. So Carol, I'm finally getting to a question. How, like how do you practically, how do you put limit into your daily life, your spiritual disciplines, what does that look like for you in a practical way?
Carol Collier (24:44.988)
I do, and it's kind of like, what came first, the chicken or the egg? I have a lot of people who come to me with the hard things of their life.
Alex (24:50.455)
Yeah.
Carol Collier (24:59.435)
and sometimes when they're at a crisis point. And so I think that there is, because I have practiced lament, because I do, there is a knowledge that I can hold their stories, that I'm able to sit with them in that space and allow God to enter in with us and minister. So, you know, I know that because I've been very open
and invitational about my sorrows and my grief. I've really wanted to spread a table and invite people to come in and to feast with the king. And so I get to enter into the practice of lament with other people. And also the Psalms.
you know, a third of the Psalms being laments, and they are so rich and so, they're beautiful. And when, I really think that...
intentionally reading a psalm of lament and letting yourself sit in it. Maybe a Lectio Divina practice and allowing yourself to feel the feelings that you have as you read it and not correcting whatever rises up whether it would be anger, sadness, fear, but naming it with God
Carol Collier (26:39.365)
and to minister to you, me, what he has for me that is just so intimate and so kind. So, and then as we observe the world around us, there you can either choose to block it out, or you can choose to enter in to the sorrows of this world.
Carol Collier (27:08.365)
as a person who knocks on my door, who is in a moment of crisis, and it can be as distant as maybe something that I read in the news, something that I'm hearing happening, is to instead of entering into that with, you know, a quick wanting to have an answer as to why this is happening and how we need to get this, you know, under control or fixed, that we actually allow ourselves to feel
Carol Collier (27:38.105)
whether it would be something as horrific as a school shooting to really allow ourselves to feel the grief of that, or something that is happening in Ukraine. We are so quick to move on to the next thing and so quick to comfort ourselves with really worthless idols. If we sit in the pain, we will find
this voice of God that is so...
so beautiful, so nourishing, so nurturing. And so, you know, I think we just need to walk into it instead of walking away from it and making it a practice, you know, doesn't have to be daily, but maybe part of our spiritual rhythms. You know, like we do Lent, you know, maybe practicing 40 days of lament where we actually allow ourselves to go into the place of sackcloth and ashes.
Alex (28:33.087)
Mm-hmm.
Carol Collier (28:41.445)
I know it's very un-American and it actually can also be very antithetical to some of the evangelical Christian messages that we can sometimes get. Is that we are victorious and we are overcomers. There is truth to that, but there's another part of the story. Is that we are here now but not yet. We are living in the Kingdom but not yet.
Alex (28:54.816)
Mm-hmm.
Carol Collier (29:10.565)
And that needs to be a place of mourning for us. And we don't like it. We won't do it. So then when somebody comes who is really in a place of pain, we don't know what to do because we've never allowed ourselves to be in that place.
Alex (29:10.775)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (29:27.725)
And really practically Carol, one of the things that has changed this into a regular practice for me, I always used to say that journal, journaling was always my New Year's resolution and I never kept it, ever, until the last probably six months. And two things changed that, particularly journaling lament. And I no longer pick up my pretty journal.
Alex (29:57.999)
a blank sheet of paper and when I write it is messy. You really wouldn't even be able to read it. It is almost a stream of consciousness. It is messy words, messy emotions and they're all on paper. And the second thing is that when I'm done I burn it and my family laughs at me but it has become a ritual for me because I
Carol Collier (30:03.1)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (30:27.759)
I light it on fire and there is a sense that only it goes up to God and only He sees those words and that He is so much kinder to that messiness than I can even be to that messiness. Like He is the only one who can hold it. I can't even I can't hold my own words and those two things have revolutionized this as a spiritual
Carol Collier (30:35.162)
Mm-hmm.
Alex (30:57.559)
like it's cathartic because I'm not worried that anybody else is going to see it and it doesn't have to look pretty.
Carol Collier (31:04.043)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, I have stacks of journals, and there's, you know, the ones from this decade of my life, I say I'm going to wrap in yellow caution tape and read at your own risk, because they're not, you know, I really think that if we're honest, faith is messy. It is not linear. And...
Alex (31:15.713)
Yes.
Carol Collier (31:29.227)
Being able to be with someone in their messy face, that this woman that I'm sitting with right now, she just wants to know, am I loved in my pain and my disorder? Can I be ugly and still be loved?
And I think that when we have allowed ourselves to see the ugly parts of ourselves, the shadow parts, the parts that are not lovely and presentable, and we find that we have a loving savior who sits there with us, that's how we can be for other people, it's incarnational. You know, it's that we come into the lives of people and we are able to sit with them, because we have to have
learned or are learning our own shadow side and what is it like to sit with a loving Savior. I think, yeah, it's just…
A messy faith is something I want to call people into. I'm finishing up this week. We've been doing a book, a summer book study, Surrender to Love by David Benner. Last week I said in my teaching is that when we come into intimacy with God, we take off the clothes of performance.
Alex (32:39.485)
Mm-hmm.
Carol Collier (33:04.485)
face off, we empty our bag of worthless trophies, we brush our teeth and rinse our breath of our self-justification, blame shifting, self-righteousness, we set aside our iPhone of likes, and we sit naked with God. And if you stand in front of the mirror and you see your naked body, we tend to want to, even if it's just us, we want to cover up their shame.
points us back to what happened in the garden when the first emotion that Adam and Eve felt was shame and they were hiding from God and God called them out and He removed their false covering and gave them a covering that pointed to the future covering of Jesus but that place of being naked and unashamed with God is really a place of deep intimacy that that's really
It doesn't transcend the cognitive, but it in one sense bypasses and goes to the deeper regions. I don't think that intimacy with God can be found just by thinking right thoughts. I think it has to drop down, down into the emotional and the desire part of our being. And that's where we will find the messiness.
Brenda (34:13.3)
Mmm.
Carol Collier (34:35.99)
us, receive us and speak to us and hold us.
Brenda (34:39.682)
Yeah. Oh gosh, girl. This is just so, so beautiful. So many great takeaways. Um, yeah, I would, I must just feel like we just need to be like, we need to say, say la, and we all just need to be quiet for a few minutes and just take in what else pause to all this been said is, is just so powerful and so good. Um, I know that, um,
Carol Collier (34:52.011)
Haha, yeah pause
Alex (34:52.611)
Mm-hmm.
Brenda (35:03.998)
You are a prolific writer and you just, I've read some of your work on your social media and just so beautiful and we wondered maybe if you would share one of your laments with us and with our listeners today that we could just be blessed by hearing something that the Lord has shown you along the way and how he's met you.
Carol Collier (35:24.191)
Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, this is a prayer that I wrote just a few days, maybe a week after Scott died. And so I'll read that. Oh Lord, assist me as I place my foot upon this untamed path. Let me not push and rush and wildly enter such holy ground.
May every necessary tear water the ground under my feet, and every breathed out sigh open the air before me. Lift my head just enough to notice what surrounds me, but bowed without break to carry the weight of a great loss. May my tears soften and prism this new landscape of wild and sharp edges. Grace me to make peace with the quiet and stillness of this space that was once filled
of my love. My trust is in you Lord Jesus. I place my hand in yours.
Carol Collier (36:32.231)
And I have one more if you're okay for me to read. This one is more of a lament. This one was soon after he died as well. In the quiet of the almost spent day, my thoughts slowly turn. This way, that way. Could there have been a different way, Lord? Why this way, Lord? I answer to myself.
Brenda (36:35.434)
Yeah, please do.
Alex (36:36.595)
Mm-hmm.
Carol Collier (37:01.027)
I don't know why this way. Selah. In this moment, Lord, I surrender my search to know, to understand, to make sense. I surrender not in defeat. I surrender in relief. I sigh and release for now the unfathomable why. I release and fall into the unfathomable you.
Brenda (37:32.87)
are so beautiful. Oh my goodness. And you know one of the things that's so beautiful about the Psalms or having somebody like you who God has clearly given a gift for words and expressing emotions. You know we might not take Alex's laments that she burns and use them as our you know as a model because they're not going to be available. She's burned them to the Lord. But uh...
Alex (37:57.201)
They're not that beautiful, I can tell you.
Carol Collier (37:58.979)
I'm sorry.
Brenda (38:01.626)
Well, the messiness, you know, to know, I guess we've given people permission to have that real messy sense of where they can just go and word vomit and then it's just they can get rid of it. But I think also to have the Psalms or to have people like you who can put into words sometimes what others cannot put into words. And so I just I think that's so beautiful. And I'm thankful that you often so freely share those thoughts and even, you know, as you lament for other people as you've shared that as well.
Carol Collier (38:09.581)
Yeah.
Brenda (38:30.6)
I think just encourages the rest of us to enter into a discipline, the spiritual discipline of lament, but also gives us some words, some vocabulary, some language for what that might look like to have complaints that are God-word as well. So thank you. I don't know, Alex, is there anything else you wanted to ask or say before we wrap up?
Carol Collier (38:44.81)
Mm.
Well, Alex, I didn't want to just jump in.
Alex (39:08.545)
I just still am captured by the idea that, you know, we talk so much about how to walk alongside others and I'm just really grateful, Carol, that you've brought lament as a...
It is our means of entering into the comfort and care of God, but it also is a means to bring comfort and care to others. And it may sound weird, but I don't think I've made that connection before. I think that's just been really profound for me to sit here and think that it's true, that the messier that I allow myself to get in my vertical relationship, it's just the more comfortable I am sitting with others in their messy places. And so I just thank you
Carol Collier (39:37.103)
Mm.
Alex (39:53.867)
today.
Carol Collier (39:54.615)
Hmm, hmm, yeah. Well, you know, I think how, in the years of Scott's dying, they were really hard because, well, of course they were. But there was, I think one of the hardest things for me was encountering what I call that shadow self, that self that had never.
Brenda (39:54.794)
Yeah, I would agree with that.
Carol Collier (40:20.155)
And of course it was there, but it was never brought to life in the way that it was when I was caring for Him. And one of the hard things for me during and after was remembering my times of impatience, unkindness, being distant from Him, frustrated, and not loving. And I sought the Lord on that. Because it was so...
It would really burden me, especially afterwards, because I couldn't go back and make repair.
You know, I'm very careful not to attribute words to the Lord, you know, but yet I know there are times when His Spirit speaks to mine. And I asked Him, I said, Lord, why? Why did you let, you know, I would ask You for more patience. I would ask You. And was it just the quality of my request or was it You who didn't come through for me? And what I felt in my spirit was that He said, I ordained your failures.
And there were times where I did pull back. And that was because you needed to see who you really are.
Because only in seeing who you really are, you're gonna be able to see who I really am. And it was painful. And it still is if I remember, you know, the times of me being impatient with Scott and not being the person that I thought I could be and that I thought I was. And God is saying, no, you need to see. You need to see because this is where you will be able to see who I really am.
Brenda (41:34.569)
Hmm.
Carol Collier (42:04.197)
It's given me great comfort to know that He even ordains my failures. But it's not just so that I can be left desolate. It is so that I can receive the consolation of who He is. And what a love. I don't even know that there are human words to describe the love of Christ for us. It is...
Carol Collier (42:31.611)
It's just beyond words. And so that is something I think that has enabled me to sit with people when they're finding their shadow side, where they're like, I can't believe that this is how I'm, and for me to be able to say, what is it you are feeling, you can say it, it's safe, because we have a safe God. We do, he is wild, but he is safe. And so that was something that has really
Alex (42:53.458)
Mm-hmm.
Carol Collier (43:01.505)
I think deeply changed me as seeing that I was not the shiny happy Christian in this I was really ugly at times and that even in that God was catching me in that moment and covering with grace so that has allowed me to sit with people in their messiness and sometimes their ugliness and Not to judge because I saw it in myself and I received so great of love and that's what I want them That's the feast
is this great love of our King who loves us so much and he will seek us out no matter how far we go. So it's just that blessed assurance, it really is. And it is so deeply rooted in who Christ is for me.
Brenda (43:50.27)
Well, I think we're going to stop there because that's enough to keep us all meditating, pondering, thinking, giving thanks, lamenting, all of it for a while. Carol, thank you so much. It has just been such a joy. I just can't even tell you. I think Alex and I are going to be chewing on what you've said for a long time. And, you know, I'm just thinking here you are in Chattanooga with me. I need to get together with you more often to receive more encouragement and wisdom and insight and all of that.
Carol Collier (44:08.055)
Oh.
Carol Collier (44:14.491)
I love that.
Brenda (44:20.204)
the bottom of our hearts. We're so sorry for the pain you've been through, but we're so thankful that you have struggled and suffered well and that God has brought you now into a season that you are offering so much hope to so many people and allowing them to see and know and understand the love of God for them and their suffering. So thank you.
Carol Collier (44:31.914)
Mm.
Carol Collier (44:38.291)
You're welcome. Thank you for inviting me. It's been a really sweet time together. Thank you.
Alex (44:38.737)
Thank you.
Alex (44:43.081)
Hmm.