{"id":451,"date":"2019-10-02T16:21:07","date_gmt":"2019-10-02T16:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/2019\/10\/01\/when-facing-our-difficulties-brings-healing\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T20:07:53","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T20:07:53","slug":"when-facing-our-difficulties-brings-healing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/when-facing-our-difficulties-brings-healing\/","title":{"rendered":"When bad things happen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Gospel of Luke records a short but vital story<\/a> of Jesus\u2019 confrontation with death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hot on the heels of a very public act of healing the child of someone famous<\/a>, Jesus leads an impromptu parade of followers, well-wishers and the curious as he continues his travels and teaching. This parade is a celebration of healing and life. The one with the power of life leads the march.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, as they approach the next village, a town called Nain (a word meaning \u201cpleasant\u201d or \u201cbeautiful,\u201d likely due to the lush pastures that surrounded it) Jesus and his band of celebrants are confronted by a funeral procession. A young man has died leaving his widowed mother to herself. His life cut too short. Hers now at risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What will Jesus do? Convenience would suggest he step to the side. Empathy might call him to join the mourners. The religious code prohibited him and his followers from coming too close. Contact with anything dead put one at unpredictable risk<\/a>, both physically and spiritually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Jesus, however, embodies life, not fear. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Without making a big deal out of it, he comforts the woman and then reaches out and touches the bier on which the body is being carried. Jesus tells the young man to get up. The man does so and begins to speak. Jesus, who is the Word of Life, is greeted by words from one who is living again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The temptation, when we are confronted by situations that are problem-plagued and unpredictable \u2013 situations that look like big or little deaths \u2013 is to try to minimize our exposure. We\u2019d rather keep things clean and simple. We\u2019d rather not get caught up in the messiness. It\u2019s easier to practice avoidance. So, we pretend we didn\u2019t hear. We try to forget. We don\u2019t bring things up. It will, we fear, just make things worse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But things could be otherwise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, during suicide awareness week, we were encouraged to \u201cSeize the awkward\u201d<\/a> and use those times of awkward silence to ask a companion who seems down if they are okay. A growing body of evidence supports the practice of journaling about emotionally intense experiences<\/a> as a way of improving health and wellness. In both of these examples, we intentionally bring our life into contact with that which seems like death. Life and wellness rise victorious. We shouldn\u2019t be surprised by this. In all kinds of circumstances, life persists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As surely as Jesus\u2019 raising of the widow\u2019s only son at Nain prefigured his own resurrection \u2014 and note that Jesus is also the only son \u2014 Christians are called to recognize these moments when life is triumphant as echoes of Jesus\u2019 resurrection and signs pointing to the restoration of all life in the return of Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

May it be so among us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pr Jim<\/p>\n\n\n\n

University Pastor James Wetzstein and Deaconess Kristin Lewis take turns writing weekly reflections.<\/em>\u00a0You can\u00a0contact Deaconess Kristin here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Pastor Jim here<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Gospel of Luke records a short but vital story of Jesus\u2019 confrontation with death. Hot on the heels of a very public act of healing the child of someone famous, Jesus leads […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":88,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-james-a-wetzstein","category-csl-newsletter-devotionals"],"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"dev@eridesign.com","author_link":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/author\/deveridesign-com\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2025\/06\/20151211-FJA-Christmas-Advent-Vespers-018-300x200.webp","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["James A. Wetzstein<\/a>","CSL Newsletter Devotionals<\/a>"],"unlinked":["James A. Wetzstein<\/span>","CSL Newsletter Devotionals<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 7 years ago","modified":"Updated 10 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on October 2, 2019","modified":"Updated on December 29, 2025"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on October 2, 2019 4:21 pm","modified":"Updated on December 29, 2025 8:07 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12035,"href":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions\/12035"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/devotionals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}