Embracing Struggle: The Hidden Stories of Suffering
This chapter explores the often-overlooked narratives of suffering within church communities, contrasting them with the celebrated positive testimonies. The speaker encourages recognition of ongoing struggles as part of a larger story of divine grace and wholeness, reflecting on personal experiences with chronic illness and the intersection of faith and pain. It advocates for deeper understanding and support from church leaders, emphasizing the need for genuine connection and compassion in addressing the complexities of suffering.
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Episode 044 – Your Suffering is Sacred (With K.J. Ramsey)
Are you allergic to happy clappy Christianity? There’s a good reason for thats. Churches that ignore suffering are ignoring Jesus. Many churches are not good at holding suffering. People who find themselves in extended suffering — maybe living with depression or anxiety, other mental health issues, or even invisible chronic illness — sometimes find there’s not a place for them in the church. In this episode, I talk with KJ Ramsey who has particular experience with this, and we talk about the gospel according to suffering.
Show Notes
“There needs to be more room in the Body of Christ to stand in the ground of our sorrow and see our suffering Savior.” – KJR
“We prefer to keep death out of sight and any reminders of the decay in our bodies or being less than dazzling, we want to hide and pretend it doesn’t exist but the good news is that’s not the way of Jesus.” -KJR
“If you’re in a church where they say ‘This table is for all,’ but you’re not actually included, leave. You don’t need to stay in a community that crushes you…You are not faithless if you need to walk away.” – KJR
“To deconstruct the 2x4s of a house that was never actually God’s house is a gift that you give to your future self.” -KJR
Follow KJ Ramsey & Get her Book
K.J. Ramsey (BA, Covenant College, MA, Denver Seminary) is a licensed professional counselor, writer, and recovering idealist who believes sorrow and joy coexist. She is the author of This Too Shall Last: Finding Grace When Suffering Lingers, and her writing has been published in Christianity Today, RELEVANT, The Huffington Post, Fathom Magazine, Health Central, and more on the integration of theology, psychology, and spiritual formation. She and her husband live in Denver, Colorado.
Untangle Workbook: A guided journaling process for untangling emotions and finding wisdom – If you’re like me, you might not have really been equipped to face difficult feelings. Distraction and denial were my favorite emotional tools. Projects. Video Games. TV. Social Media. More Work. Anything to not feel the discomfort. Learning how to sit with my feelings and understand what they really meant has been life changing. I wanted to share that with people I work with, so I wrote this little journal. The first 30 pages teach you the basics of how emotions work in our bodies and our brains, and how make meaning out of all of that. Then you learn a step-by-step template that guides you through processing an emotional reaction.
Subscribe to my Email List. You’ll get a free copy of a little book called The Anchor Prayer: A Prayer & Process for Remaining Grounded in a Chaotic World.
