Stewarding Our Pain
When Grief is All I Have to Offer. Obedience is Hard (& sometimes scary) But Always Worth It
“They came to a place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull).
There they offered Jesus wine to drink, mixed with gall;
but after tasting it, He refused to drink it.”
Matthew 27:33-34
Three years ago this month I quit drinking. I’m not an alcoholic, but I’ve since learned you don’t have to hit rock bottom to have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol.
The Lord spoke His will very clearly to me by way of three different people, but because I wasn’t expecting the message, it took me a bit to ‘catch on.’ And when I did, my desire to obey was met with trepidation.
In November of 2022, I was barely able to turn my head or raise my right arm without suffering and sought the help of a chiropractor.1 We clicked immediately. For not only is he a Christian doctor who humbly gives glory to the True Healer, but he also recognizes the importance of a holistic approach to health.2 We began discussing food and he suggested I return to my abandoned anti-inflammatory diet to hasten my recovery.
“Sugar and alcohol are very inflammatory, y’know,” he casually offered—perhaps because the holidays were quickly approaching, or maybe because at that particular moment, God dropped the notion into his mind to catch me in that ‘all ears’ moment.
His mentioning alcohol caused a memory to resurface during my hour-long drive home. A woman I have followed on Instagram for several years had recently shared her conviction to quit alcohol. She has a home decor account, so this story was out of the norm for her, but she had felt called to share it with her (rather large) audience. I don’t remember feeling any shared convictions to quit drinking at the time, but I do remember her description of “an unhealthy relationship” catching my ear.
Fast forward a week. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years were right around the corner and psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen was working through a video series on a subject near and dear to him: alcohol and the brain. I have followed and appreciated Dr. Amen’s no-nonsense, practical advice for some time, so when he began emphasizing complete abstinence from alcohol for the sake of your brain I tuned in. What drove his message home, though, was the point he made about dementia. My grandma died from dementia, and I saw firsthand how much it took from her. I will do anything I can to avoid getting it. Dr. Amen explained how alcohol slows blood flow to the brain and reduced blood flow means reduced oxygen and reduced oxygen means cells begin to die.
“I think the Lord might be calling me to quit drinking,” I nervously shared with Rich a few days later. “Oh?” he started. “For a time or for good?”
I considered for a moment. “I’m not sure.”
You see, I was pretty certain the Lord meant ‘for good’ but the absoluteness of that scared me. And I believe that is exactly why God called me to abandon it.
What do you love more, Vanessa?
To be clear, it wasn’t a question of loving alcohol more than God, but rather the reasons I used alcohol in the first place.
At just fourteen, my first experience with alcohol introduced an easy way to escape the weight my young life carried. Life didn’t quite measure up the way I thought it should, and I felt a deep-seated discontent. My parents were fighting a lot—with each other, yes, but even more so their own dark depression. The girls I longed to befriend had rejected me. The things I believed would improve my social status were beyond financial reach.
The roots of my fledgling faith too shallow to reach for God, I reached instead for a bottle.
Alcohol quieted the discontent and numbed the pain in my heart. Life felt lighter and silly because I felt lighter and silly. Laughter came easily and I didn’t think so much—because I couldn’t think much at all.
I could step away from my sad, serious self and my sad, serious circumstances and be someone else for a time. Someone unafraid of the future and someone forgetful of the past. Someone who didn’t have to feel the weight of the present.
And this became a thirty-year pattern.
Life too hard? Relax with a glass of wine.
Feeling lonely? Have a drink or two.
Responsibilities piling up? A cocktail will lighten the load.
Minimalist Joshua Fields Millburn believes our exterior environment is a reflection of our inner environment. If our clutter is out of control, he says, so must be our minds. Looking back I can see this idea playing out in my life only I didn’t want anyone to know just how ‘out of control’ my mind felt so I worked very hard to ‘have it all together’ at least on the outside.
I developed a wicked inner critic and perfectionism. Nothing I did was ever good enough. My standards were impossibly high. Quitting was not an option.
My critic told me I was lazy and worthless…it’s no wonder you’re such a mess.
The harsher the critic, the harder I worked. I believed if I could just control enough on the outside, the inner turmoil would dissipate.
When the weight became too much, I tried to shut it up, hide from it, and numb it—but it remained an unrelenting mountain.
I’ve read the account of Christ’s crucifixion many times, but it was only this past spring that certain details stood out to me in new ways. One of them concerned the matter of Jesus refusing the galled wine. Some translations of Matthew 27:34 use ‘bitter gall’ or ‘bile’ and Mark 15:23 uses ‘myrrh.’ Whatever is ‘galled wine’ anyway? I wondered. It doesn’t sound very good—were they just being cruel in offering it to Him? Another taunt perhaps?
Turns out, in ancient times, gall refers to a bitter-tasting substance made from wormwood or myrrh. When wine was mixed with these bitter plants it created a drink that dulled the sense of pain—which explains why The Living Bible translation calls it “drugged wine.” In Roman crucifixion, the mixture of sour wine and gall was often given to the dying to ease their pain.
The first time Jesus is offered a drink while on the cross, it was something to numb His pain, but after realizing what it was, He refused to drink it. Why?
He was determined to suffer the agony of the cross in full.
“The Son of Man, in dying on our behalf, rejected anything that would numb the suffering our salvation required. To accept the stupefying vinegar-and-gall mix would lessen sin’s punishment. Jesus courageously refused to take the easy way out.”3
When I read this quote in a “Got Questions” article about galled wine, the tears welled up and prevented further reading. That even in this most agonizing of experiences Jesus refused to numb His senses hit me like a ton of bricks.
Sometimes the Lord gives us a directive but the why behind His calling isn’t made clear until sometime later. It took me three years, but now I have a much deeper appreciation for what the Lord wanted me to learn.
Our church has spent the last four weeks studying various Old Testament passages in order to develop a fuller understanding of stewardship.
Stewardship is a whole life offering. It includes how we manage our money, yes. But also our time, and talents, and relationships. And it doesn’t stop there either. Everything the Lord has given us is to be stewarded and that includes our emotional life as well.
In First Samuel, Hannah’s years-long barrenness is continually rubbed in her face by her “rival,” Peninnah. “In bitterness of soul Hannah wept much and prayed to the Lord.” She tells the priest Eli who erroneously believed she was drunk, “I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord…I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.” (1 Sam 1:10; 15-16) Hannah felt the heavy weight of grief, but she refused to become numb. Instead, she gave it to God.
Sometimes grief is the only thing we have to offer the Lord, but when we lay it at His feet, like Hannah did, it is a rich offering. Like the widow’s two last pennies, it is more valuable than any offering given from one’s abundance.4 Giving the Lord our grief, longing, overwhelm, fear, and disappointment demonstrates where our hope and trust lie.
What do you love more, Vanessa?
Attempting to be self-reliant and in control put me on the throne of my heart. Trying to numb my emotions withheld rich offering to God. “Self-sufficiency will bar you from trusting Jesus,” Alistar Begg teaches.
My life is His and I don’t want to withhold anything from Him.
I want to lay all of my life down at the foot of the cross.
At the foot of the cross, where Jesus refused to numb His pain and instead felt the full wrath of God in order to set me free.
Free from sin and death—oh yes, and so much more.
He set me free from the search for identity
and meaning and purpose.
From striving and earning
From the fear of rejection
and isolation.
He set me free from the fear of man
and seeking his approval
Free from shame and guilt
and self-condemnation.
I’m free to come Home.
Jesus bids us come and He will give us rest.
The world’s yoke is heavy.
Grace is light.
Come to the cross. Weak, weary, heavy-laden.
Give Him the offering of an unveiled heart and He will make beauty from ashes.
I wrote about ways my shoulder injury helped me further understand the cauterizing effect of sin and the mystery of sanctification in my essay ‘A Refining Fire.’
Upon receiving his patients’ gratitude for their healing, Dr. Bowden often says, “He does the work. I just read His instruction manual” with a wink.
When I read this quote in this article about the galled wine, I had to stop and pray through tears. It hit me like a ton of bricks.
See Luke 21:1-4
Music to my ears! And back at ya! ❤❤❤
Very humbling my Love❤️