Christ Has No Voice But Yours - Christ Stands With You

Christ Stands With Us

“Tend my sheep, feed my sheep, follow me” (John 21: 15-19).

There are things that come in and out of my life; then there is the call of Christ. Christ is the transformer of the world, the one who acts parabolically for justice, love, goodness, and all things beautiful. How could I ever say no?

Have I felt unprepared? Have I, at times, felt too weak, insufficient, unworthy, and tired?

A plethora of examples fly through me as I consider all the times I have been made to feel unworthy or the times that I have made large mistakes–the blindly embarrassing sort that leaves you feeling the sting of conscience for decades.

I remember one moment, when I fell on my face at work and felt I was faltering as a mother. These two events seem to coincide in my life. It was my daughters who reminded me who I stand with. They were maybe six and seven years old, and I was a mess. I came home to my still simple home because we were still recovering from our losses after Hurricane Katrina, and I locked myself away in my room after a big loss at “work.” Was I pouting? Punishing myself? Avoiding? Probably.

My daughters entered my room and asked me to read from Robert Munsh’s picture book I Love You Forever. The refrain of the book is:

I’ll love you forever

I’ll like you for always

As long as I’m living

My baby you’ll be.

In this book, the child and the mother age, together, and eventually the mother becomes old and sick. During this point of the reading, my daughter stops me and says in her sweet but tough voice, “That’s you, mom.”

I remember being shocked, “Me? I am not old; nor am I sick!”

“Yes, you are,” she said and paused, glaring at me.

“I am sorry,” I said. I was sorry for all my failures and weakness that this little body was seeing clearly. “I am not a good mom.”

Without a pause of faltering she said, “You are our Mom. You are the best Mom. We don’t want anyone but you.”

It was one of those moments for me that may have been a second in lived time, but God opened up a holy pause and gently pushed back the curtain to show the truth. God was standing with me.

God is standing with us. We are broken, and we are beautiful. We are called to stand in our broken beauty and live out our vocations as mothers, teachers, lawyers, nurses, friends, spouses, doctors, and physicists. It is in the motion of actual standing from our brokenness, with the help of God’s hand pulling us to our feet, that co-creation with God occurs. Our brokenness and God’s eternal grace are the required ingredients to live.

Like our good friend Peter in John 21, the epitome of what it means to be a human, I say yes to Christ’s love. I say to Christ, who asks me “Do you love me?” “Yes, Christ, you know all things, you know that I love you.” Christ says, “Feed my sheep.”

Immediately, like you, all of my insufficiencies are used for the good. Christ remains and invites me to stand WITH. And, when I am standing with Christ, I CAN feed and tend the sheep.

Christ stands with you.

Christ stands with you

In your fatigue

In your busyness

In your financial stress

In your gut-wrenching worry for your children and parents

In you as you sit with the poor, broken-hearted, addicted

In the face of global violence, oppression, and war

The prophet Isaiah felt wholly inadequate, like us, to listen, serve, and speak for God. Isaiah tells God, “I am a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5). He experienced and felt the deep yearnings of God’s people as they faced great peril even as he felt unworthy. God chose Isaiah anyway, and gave him concise words and insights to meet the needs of the people as they faced the attack of the strong Assyrian empire that would nearly destroy them.

In scripture, Isaiah sees what will become the demise of his people and reaches to God in an honest and authentic yearning, “How long, O Lord?” (Isaiah 6:11). God answers Isaiah with a difficult truth, and Isaiah hears, receives, and remains faithful through the trials. God never leaves Isaiah, and Isaiah never leaves God.

Later in Isaiah’s conversations with God, God reminds him saying, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name: you are mine” (Isaiah 43:1). Knowing that he might feel alone and that life might be complicated or even difficult, God comforts Isaiah saying that when—not if—the waters rise and the fires burn that Isaiah will not be swept away or consumed. God tells Isaiah why: “Because you are precious in my eyes and honored, and I love you” (Isaiah 43:4). God speaks the same to us, promising us that we are loved and honored even as we face difficulties.

Christ stands with us.

We are not different from Isaiah; there is no need to run toward scarcity and disbelief. We are creatures of God burdened by the struggles of life, yet warmly comforted and accompanied by the love and companionship of God. We are a broken people held together by a loving God who sings grace, constantly, into our lives. Christ stands with us. God does not seek us out for our perfection, rather God sees our brokenness and embraces us and stands with us. Many times we think that we must work towards some merit to receive the love of God, but this is only rooted in lies and untruths.

Christ stands with us pouring grace into our broken beauty.

Going Deeper Together:

• Listen to Rita Connelley’s The Deer’s Cry
• Pray St. Patrick’s Breastplate Prayer
• Read I Love You Forever by Robert Munsch
• Pray a Colloquy with Christ Crucified guided by Becky Eldredge.
• Pray with one of our new Individual Paths of Prayer, I Am Worthy of God’s Love: A Grace We Seek Path of Prayer.

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Photo by Tim Hufner on Unsplash

Stephanie Clouatre Davis

Stephanie Clouatre Davis graduated from Loyola University New Orleans. Stephanie speaks to adults and teens around the nation at parishes, high schools, and dioceses in various venues including retreats and conferences. With humor, joy, and stories, Stephanie not only fully engages her audiences but also inspires them to challenge themselves and build a stronger relationship with God. She lives in Covington, Louisiana with her husband Michael and two girls,

Emma and Abby.