{"id":27037,"date":"2026-05-26T08:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T12:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=27037"},"modified":"2026-05-26T08:48:45","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T12:48:45","slug":"27037","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=27037","title":{"rendered":"A Spirit-Given Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"You Are Mine by David Haas\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SisUP4e9Y-k?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Tuesday, May 26, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Feminist theologian Rebecca Button Pritchard describes how the Spirit accompanies our embodiment:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After hours of painful labor, of breathing deeply and quickly, a body comes from a body. Pain and hope, relief and anxiety spin together wildly as the tiny body, bloody, waxen, draws air into lungs and bellows. Tears of pain and joy flow together. The cord is cut; the child becomes a living, breathing soul. The grown-ups, who\u2019ve been breathing on their own for many years now, are exhausted, delighted, relieved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Inspiration, respiration, inhalation, exhalation, these are the evidence that a new life has begun. New birth is confirmed with a cry, the sound of air moving across vocal chords. Just so, <strong>embodied existence has begun for one of us, for all of us. <\/strong>The breath of life, the animating spirit, <strong>moves through the systems of bodies created in the image and likeness of God<\/strong>. New life breathes by the grace of God and depends on the grace of parents for sustenance and love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lungs, larynx, and lips give us the power to speak, to cry, to sing, to name, to praise, to pray&#8230;. \u201cLet everything that breathes, praise the Lord,\u201d sang the psalmist (150:6). The rush of God\u2019s Spirit, mighty and creative, blows also across windpipes, forming words, language, speech. Finding a voice, speaking up, being heard into speech, these give our lives meaning and value, enabling us to make sense of things, including our lives as creatures related to God, to creation, to others, to self. Just so, the sound of God\u2019s Spirit, the mighty wind of Pentecost, is the sound of human language, of being heard and understood. [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Recognizing how the Spirit lives, moves, and breathes in our bodies allows us to live a wholehearted, courageous faith:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>T<strong>rue spirituality, embodied spirituality, may be described as wholeheartedness, as the integration of body and spirit, of&nbsp;<em>nephesh<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>basar<\/em>, of heart and soul<\/strong>. It is with this wholeheartedness that we hear and follow God\u2019s voice;<strong> it is wholeheartedly that we find the words to cry out to God, to sing praise, to speak a prophetic word, a comforting word, to tell our stories, and to make sense of all our relationships.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wholehearted spirituality in the freedom of the Spirit <strong>gives us courage, courage to bear witness to God\u2019s grace against all odds, courage to speak despite efforts to silence us, courage to act authentically and in ways that encourage and empower the weak and the vulnerable. The Spirit gives us the wisdom to discern truthful moments, to bring both suspicion and trust to the interpretation of both past and present. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>==================<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/app-link\/post?publication_id=3367802&amp;post_id=199180591&amp;utm_source=post-email-title&amp;utm_campaign=email-post-title&amp;isFreemail=true&amp;r=2dkj2&amp;token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjozOTkyMzY2LCJwb3N0X2lkIjoxOTkxODA1OTEsImlhdCI6MTc3OTcyMjc1MCwiZXhwIjoxNzgyMzE0NzUwLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMzM2NzgwMiIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.oaRmw2ivLyhD8QVJvNUL2XGkajZai_gfnyFeZ18peeA\">Solidarity in our Suffering<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How the Cross (and Trauma Research) Offer Better News Than Unhelpful Christian Clich\u00e9s<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/@chuckdegroat\">CHUCK DEGROAT<\/a>.    MAY 25<\/td><td><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/@chuckdegroat\"><\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis is the good news. God writes your story\u2014including your story of suffering\u2014in a way that grows you into his likeness and reveals his glory,\u201d he said at a conference years ago, the audience nodding in affirmation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I don\u2019t recall the speaker\u2019s name, but I do recall my dismay, even disgust.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve sat with families navigating cancer diagnoses for their children and with spouses hearing early dementia diagnoses and with women and men sharing stories of unspeakable abuse. And I\u2019d never, ever consider it&nbsp;<em>good news<\/em>&nbsp;that God somehow orchestrated these things.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve long believed the Christian&nbsp;<em>good news&nbsp;<\/em>(aka \u201cGospel\u201d) is not that God stands at a distance arranging our suffering for some secret purpose, but that<strong> God meets us in solidarity with our suffering in Jesus Christ, entering in to what feels cruel and pointless in order to heal, redeem, and ultimately undo all that fractures humanity and creation itself.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even still, I have dozens of phrases from sermons and talks stretching back into my childhood that make their way from the recesses of my psyche every now-and-then\u2026phrases like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cGod won\u2019t give you more than you can handle.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cEverything happens for a reason.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cGod is using this to teach you something.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cThis is part of God\u2019s plan.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cGod must be preparing you for something greater.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cGod is more concerned with your holiness than your happiness.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cMaybe God allowed this to draw you closer to him.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cTrials are blessings in disguise.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cIf God brought you to it, he\u2019ll bring you through it.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>I think back to my seminary days where it seems we spent more time trying to discern the mind of God than we did learning what it means to sit in suffering-solidarity with others in the name of Jesus. And nearly 30 years of pastoral care and clinical therapy have convinced me that <strong>we\u2019ve too often lost the real goodness of the&nbsp;<em>good news.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Can suffering mature us? Can our painful stories manifest in transformation? Of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve written about this, and most of us\u2014religious or not\u2014know this intuitively.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those I\u2019ve cared for over the years have taught me this. A woman who I accompanied through years of processing the trauma of her father\u2019s abuse later told me, \u201cBecause of what I\u2019ve experienced, I can sit with others with fewer answers and more compassion.\u201d She is now someone who cares for others navigating abuse.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Suffering can deepen compassion, humility, courage, surrender, and love.<strong> But suffering does not&nbsp;<em>automatically<\/em>&nbsp;mature us. Sometimes, it fragments us.<\/strong> Unaccompanied, it may overwhelm the nervous system, leaving us vigilant, shut down, or despairing. Trauma research has helped us see what many therapists, pastors, and wise elders have long known:<strong> suffering that is witnessed, held, and accompanied is far more likely to become transformative than suffering borne alone.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I thought about how this happens recently while talking with my friend Jim Herrington on his podcast. We were discussing the tension between safety and suffering, and how easy it is to drift toward one of two extremes. <strong>On one side, we can valorize suffering in ways that make God seem cruel, calculating, even sadistic. On the other, we can valorize safety in ways that leave us unwilling to risk discomfort, grief, change, conflict, or vulnerability.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>We don\u2019t need to pit safety and suffering against each other.<\/strong> In fact, <strong>when safety and suffering walk hand-in-hand, maturity follows<\/strong>. I was reflecting on this again recently as my youngest got married last weekend, rendering Sara and I true empty-nesters. I was thinking about our shared story as a family, with two difficult cross-country moves\u2014something not uncommon to those in ministry, but also profoundly painful.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When our girls were young, we prioritized safety, connection, and attachment. But that did not mean protecting them from every hard thing. We made those difficult decisions to move, and we suffered, leaving family and friends, even homes and geographies we loved. There was grief in it, and Sara and I struggled to make those decisions knowing the cost to us, to our girls. But we were together in it. The suffering was accompanied\u2014Emma and Maggie were safe with us, held in their pain. And that makes the difference.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maybe this is one of the reasons the Gospels spend so little time trying to explain suffering philosophically. Yes, there is a place for that\u2014I don\u2019t deny that. But, <strong>the Gospel writers were far more concerned with presence, solidarity, renewed communion\u2014Jesus, God-in-the-flesh, announcing an end to exile and the kingdom come.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/redirect\/1f1f0c19-0147-46a1-a025-d56da2161033?j=eyJ1IjoiMmRrajIifQ.ND0qR5RKsmVnltuWgIlyr3BY7uwq2Kt9ZzX29UJK4cg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!KjAr!,w_1100,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F873a73d5-01b2-4893-a23e-5884df5b6f83_900x1747.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Georges Rouault (1871-1958)&nbsp;<em><strong>Etching &#8220;Christ and the Children,&#8221;<\/strong><\/em>&nbsp;1935.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Friends, we<strong> don\u2019t need to exhaust ourselves trying to decipher the hidden intentions of God behind every painful event. We don\u2019t need to live in a story of a God who stands at a distance scripting tragedy for our growth.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>God became flesh and joined us in the struggle.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>That God knows the hell you\u2019ve been through. He\u2019s been there.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>And while there are no easy answers, there is companionship in the pain.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>==============<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Individual Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Where in your body do you notice the difference between suffering that is witnessed and suffering that is borne alone?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Group Discussion \u2014 choose one<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What does it cost you, emotionally or theologically, to let go of the idea that God is orchestrating your pain for a purpose?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What would it mean for you to find your voice \u2014 to cry out, name, or speak \u2014 in a place where you&#8217;ve been silent?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Where have you experienced God&#8217;s presence as accompaniment rather than arrangement?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>================<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Contemplating the Song Selection<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The theological center of both pieces is\u00a0<strong>accompaniment<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 Pritchard on Spirit breathing\u00a0<em>through<\/em>\u00a0embodied creatures giving them voice, DeGroat on God entering suffering rather than scripting it from a distance. Both push against a disembodied, managing God toward an incarnate,\u00a0<em>with-us<\/em>\u00a0God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tuesday, May 26, 2026 Feminist theologian Rebecca Button Pritchard describes how the Spirit accompanies our embodiment:&nbsp; After hours of painful labor, of breathing deeply and quickly, a body comes from a body. Pain and hope, relief and anxiety spin together wildly as the tiny body, bloody, waxen, draws air into lungs and bellows. Tears of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27037"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27037"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27044,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27037\/revisions\/27044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}