The Ugly Truth About Self-Pity, Pride and the Light that Heals All Our Open-Wounds

My momma always told me, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”

Yeah, well, I guess lately I’ve taken that to heart.

I haven’t been able to write, to talk, to process much because the ugly truth is, I think I’ve been afraid if I opened my mouth, not too much nice was going to come out.  The ugly truth is, sometimes you can struggle through and put on a brave smile and hold back the spewing lava behind your eyes but it still burns you up from the inside.  It still burns.  Bitterness never leads to betterness.

And here I am, this very, very pregnant mama, pregnant with this seventh baby, skin splitting ready,  any day now, ready, and feeling very unready to actually deliver this most precious cargo into the light of this broken world.  Maybe it’s because I’ve spent the last nine months contemplating whether his delivery day will be my dying day.  And sure, I shouldn’t be thinking those thoughts, I shouldn’t be focusing on what could be, but it’s hard when your last birth almost ended you and the doctor said I would hemorrhage again if I had another birth. 

And really, I don’t think I am afraid, but I have been bitter at the thought of leaving these seven kids without a mother.  I have been bitter about the hardness of this pregnancy, the struggle of the last nine months, the downright difficulty of life here and now.  The hardness of raising my own six kids in these hot July days as the doorbell in my metropolitan-suburban home blows up as we are daily invaded by at least ten to fifteen more children.  Children who fill squirt guns with their own urine and spray it at my children.  Children who break and steal my kids’ birthday presents.  Children who stop by just to let me know that they were beat up at the park today or did I know that the drug dealer kid down the street is gone now because he moved?   Children that show up at our back door and pull a gun out of their pants gangster style (we found out later it was a pellet pun) and point at my teenage son’s face and tell him they are going to shoot him. 

And I fight for everyday sanity in a world just plain ripped open, hemorrhaging into the night.

This is what neighborhood ministry looks like in suburban America, sometimes it’s a downright dirty mess.

And I struggle with boundaries and I fight to make space for us but kids hang over our fence and pound to be let in and why can’ t they come swim in our little seasonal swimming pool for six hours a day?  And why do we need break time?  Good gracious, there are days that I feel far from gracious. I have days, where, in my heart, I am far from gracious. There are days that I want to outright scream, please could you just leave us be for today?  And there have been many days I have prayed to move away from here.

But this is also a place of great opportunity.

I have seen neighbors come to Christ through our love and God’s grace.  I have seen broken kids hearing the gospel from our lips over and over again.  I have had the opportunity to personally know women who spent entire lifetimes as prostitutes and have been able to share the gospel and grace with them.  I have daily had opportunities to pray for the drug dealers in our neighborhood and the kids that they try to entice.  I have had opportunities for ministry that I never imagined .  And really every open-wound can be an opportunity for healing, for grace poured out.

As for me, I have grown tired of this hanging chain of self-pity.  I want to be free.  And yesterday I read Sarah Young’s words in Jesus Calling, “Self- pity is a slimy, bottomless pit…Your only hope is to look up and see the Light of My Presence shining down on you.  Though the light looks dim from my perspective, deep in the pit, those rays of hope can reach you at any depth.”

I see light on our five corn stalks, standing straight in our tidy suburban garden beds. 

I see light coming through branches in tall city tree tops.

I see light filtering on to the zucchini blossoms.

I see light lying on the bouncing heads of my boys as they rebound with abandon as the trash trains rumble past our backyard fence carrying their refuse out of the city.

Maybe the light is beginning to dawn.

But the light that shines brightest is the light of gospel that reminds me of what I really deserve when self-pity slinks and skulks like so much slinking stench.

And I read John Piper’s words, “Boasting is the response of pride to success.  Self-pity is the response of pride to suffering.  Boasting says, ’I deserve admiration because I have achieved so much.’  Self-pity says, ‘I deserve admiration because I have sacrificed so much.’ Boasting is pride in the heart of the strong.  Self-pity is pride in the heart of the weak.  Boasting sounds self-sufficient.  Self-pity sounds self-sacrificing.  … It is the response of unapplauded pride.”  - What Jesus Demands From the World

Piper reminds me that if I want to be free from this hidden pride, I must remember who I am according to Luke 17:10, just an unworthy servant.  I have done nothing to commend myself to God, nothing to deserve better treatment than what I am getting, and no degree of my obedience merits any rightful demanding of something more. 

My every breath is a gift, simple mercy from a gracious God.

I don’t deserve more days.  I don’t deserve more ease of life.

I deserve hell, the forever torment, and that is one thing I am not getting because of God’s grace and doesn’t that, just that, merit my forever praise to Him?

True humility leads to joyful readiness to do lowly service, says Piper.  The work of a servant is to rejoice with joy over the simple and most profound grace that has ever been given; our salvation from sin and hell.

And Jesus reminds us that, “When you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”

Everything good we get from God is just gift, pure mercy poured out on those most undeserving. 

And that would be me, most undeserving of servants.

Maybe there is light in these trees.

And joy to be found in the simple graces of my every day.

Maybe joy is found, not in getting what you think you deserve but in rejoicing over what you already have in Christ.  And that is a joy that can never perish or fade away.

I don’t know what tomorrow brings, but I know that my days are in His hands, and even today, joy is available here because of His grace to unworthy sinners like me. 

And here, now, what I see is all this light, dawning mercy.