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| Can I Say That? by Brenna Blain |
Warning
This book includes sensitive material
related to the author's experience with:
+ sexual abuse (chs 1, 2, 7, 8, 10)
+ same-sex attraction (chs 1, 2)
+ depression, mental health (ch 4)
+ an eating disorder (chs 9, 10)
+ suicide attempts (chs 3, 4), and
+ a miscarriage (ch 10)
I invite you to be mindful of your
own sensitivities and how you can
give yourself care and kindness
as you read.
This is how one of my favorite nonfiction books published in 2024 begins. I have admired and appreciated the author of Can I Say That? How Unsafe Questions Lead Us to the Real God, Brenna Blain (pictured above), since I first heard her on a podcast last year, "Abuse, Suicidality, Same-Sex Sexuality, and the Love of Christ: Brenna Blain." As another author and theologian says at the beginning of Can I Say That?:
Brenna has quickly become
one of my favorite younger voices
in Jesus' Church today. That's because
Brenna is raw, uncut, honest, and
utterly addicted to the gospel.
It's about a Savior who delights in
really messed up people;
a Savior who promises us suffering
and hardship, not endless comfort
in a padded world.
(It's) the good news that God
sent His Son to enter into our pain,
experience our humanity, and deal
with our suffering by His own suffering,
bidding us to follow Him in this complex
journey of life filled with joy and doubt,
grief and victory.
In listening to her speak and reading her book, Brenna's voice has continued to be a beacon pointing me back to Christ during a hard season, most recently when she appeared on my favorite podcast, "With the Perrys: Depression, Suffering, and The Faithfulness of God's Presence." If you would like an introduction to Brenna's story, click on the image below and soak up this conversation. Also, have a tissue box ready. The tears were flowing from my eyes during the second half.
For this post, I'm going to provide an excerpt from Can I Say That? in case something resonates with you. (Also, feel free to check out Brenna's own introduction to her book from her own post, "Why I Made My Deepest Secrets into Public Confessions.") If any of her words resonate with you, grab Brenna's book and keep reading. I think you'll find Jesus as the Master in your mess, too.
Can I Say That?
Are You Worth It?
Is Jesus worth it?
Is Jesus worth the trouble? Worth the sacrifice? Worth the strange interactions with others? Worth denying your wants? Even the wants that feel like needs? Is it worth living with convictions that keep you from doing things the world enjoys?
Is He worth the sorrow, the denial of easy outs, the shaping of character that breaks parts of us away? Is Jesus worth the faith that is required to follow Him?
Jesus our Comforter never meant an earthly promise of comfort. He did promise that we would have trouble (see John 16:33).
I didn't know if
I was going to end up loving Jesus,
but I saw three different paths to choose from.
The first had heavy burdens
piled on by legalistic leaders,
like the bricks we've been told to keep hidden
I was going to end up loving Jesus,
but I saw three different paths to choose from.
The first had heavy burdens
piled on by legalistic leaders,
like the bricks we've been told to keep hidden
in the bags on our backs.
The second had seemingly no denial of self
and no crosses to bear,
claiming that following Christ isn't all that hard,
because He wants what our hearts want.
The first seemed crushing and
utterly contrary to the heart of God.
The second seemed to claim a version of Jesus
that did not reflect His Word. Compassion
ripped away from the foundation of truth
leads people to a false gospel.
So what about the third path?
It's the path I have found myself on,
the same one, in fact, that the tax collector
Levi ended up on.
It's where broken people are met
... with the Holy One.
Can I Say That?
The Third Path
Let's look at Levi's story again:
15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with Him and His disciples, for there were many who followed Him.
16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw Him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked His disciples: “Why does He eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them,
“It is not the healthy who need a doctor,
but the sick.
I have not come to call the righteous,
but sinners.”
“It is not the healthy who need a doctor,
but the sick.
I have not come to call the righteous,
but sinners.”
When Jesus said that we are sick, He was implying that we are in need of Him and His Word — all of it.
His invitation to us isn't just a call to hang out for a while and leave unchanged. How do we know this? Because of what happened to Levi the tax collector.
Levi witnessed the person of Jesus, who embodied compassion and upheld the truth, and recognized, "I have a choice to make." To follow Jesus was to never return to that tax booth. The comfort and safety and self-satisfaction and sin that was Levi's daily life had to be abandoned if he were to follow Jesus.
When Jesus says, "Follow Me" ...
Jesus does not crush us
under horrific expectations,
nor does He allow our fickle hearts
to lead us off the narrow path,
distracted by things not of His will.
His burden is easy,
and we will have trouble.
How is that so, as we now live in a
Matthew 11:28-30 and John 16:33 world?
How could we ever "take heart,"
as Jesus says?
Because this is the only path
where the literal prize at the end
is the same person who walks
the path with us.
When we submit ourselves to
the lordship of Jesus,
He becomes our guide on
the narrow path.
While the trouble is promised,
so is the ending.
He has overcome.
He has the victory.
His Spirit is here and with us.
So what does that look like in the now and the not yet?
Can I Say That?
Immeasurably More
It looks like contentment.
Jesus never said that God's plan is that we would never go hungry. God's plan is that we would experience His sufficiency in our hunger and out of our hunger. And that gain is far better than any riches and any comfort. Why? Because the gain is Him. Having Him right next to us. Just as He wept with Mary and Martha (see Jesus wept from John 11:35 in the story included in verses 11:1-44), and with you and with me.
It looks like peace.
God ordered my thoughts
when I sat, alone in the psych ward.
He delivered me to a place of peace,
even as I still struggle with
the reality of ending up there.
He has reminded me I am more
than a body when I struggle
with the ache of having an
imperfect one.
He has overwhelmed my sacred soul
when wondering if the bleeding
would ever stop and
the baby would live.
These are all pictures of what we read in Lamentations: "Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness" (3:22-23).
It looks like a
relentless pursuit of love
out of great compassion.
No distance or anger or disbelief
I could lob toward Him
in my seasons of questioning
and no fickleness of my heart today
could dim His affection
or slow His forgiveness.
Even while I was knowingly sinning,
He bore that sin and then
still chose me.
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| Can I Say That? Podcast Project by Brenna Blain |
When I have suffered as a result of my own sin as well as the sin of others, God in His goodness and redemption has taken my suffering, doubts, and questions, and allowed me to see Him and know Him more clearly through them.
God could have made me straight, but because I struggle, I get to know the power of calling on the Holy Spirit, the comfort of being seen by Christ, and the hope of one day being made whole with God.
It is through knowing loss
that I have come to know
the man of sorrows.
It is through grief
that I have been reminded
of the gift of knowing love
and learned how to accept love
when shame could more easily
take its place.
As Austin Blain says,
"Everything I think I don't have,
I actually have in Christ."
I am a person changed,
not yet fully healed or relieved
of temptation,
but changed by a compassionate God
who invited me to come close.
"You are safe here,"
He said.
Through His compassion and my first small steps with Him on the narrow path, I started to experience a God who isn't just enough, but "who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us" (Ephesians 3:20).
As I kept bringing all my bricks —
all my questions, hurts, and doubts —
to lay at His feet,
I finally realized His compassion
was leading me to a conviction
to cling to His truth, His Word.
It offered me new life.
all my questions, hurts, and doubts —
to lay at His feet,
I finally realized His compassion
was leading me to a conviction
to cling to His truth, His Word.
It offered me new life.
Jesus' truth offers you new life too.
It's not a life lugging around bricks
in shame or pretending they don't exist.
It's a life that orders the chaos
and takes those bricks
and makes a dwelling place.
in shame or pretending they don't exist.
It's a life that orders the chaos
and takes those bricks
and makes a dwelling place.
Mine is not anywhere complete;
the walls are barely chest-high.
But the foundation has been laid
and I know it is firm.
As I look around, I find myself
encouraged by those who are
working on their roofs.
Some might say,
"That is an awful lot of bricks
she once carried,"
but all I see is the home Jesus
faithfully built for me.
Order out of chaos.
Purpose out of pain.
A dwelling place for God and me,
together,
built on mercies and grace.
God is the only one who can give us these miracles.
To experience them, you have to leave the tax booth, like Levi did. But what came first for him? Sitting at a table with Jesus, sharing a meal with Him. Simply drawing near and getting to know Him, Levi ultimately came to see Jesus as someone worth trusting. Worth being vulnerable with. Worth following.
So the last question I leave you with, friend, is this: Will you bring your bricks to God? This is the God who is able to do immeasurably more than all you could ask or imagine. The God who knows your heart better than you do and desires more goodness for you than you could dream up.
The God who wants to hear
your unsafe questions
and hidden doubts.
The God who invites you
to come close,
just as you are.
And with eyes of compassion
and love says,
"You are safe here."
Will you bring those bricks to the real God?
Can I Say That?
+ pgs. 200, 204-209
Bonus Song:
The Porter's Gate
featuring DOE and Matt Maher
2024 A.D.
Breathe in, reach out,
Touch the hem of Your garment now,
Help me, heal me,
My mind, my body, and soul.
Let the King descend,
Living Word made flesh,
Lift this heavy heart to Your throne,
O God.
In His wounds I find
Room for all of mine.
When from grace I fell,
Christ was lower still.
Humbly, lowly Jesus
waits in the valley.
My Savior suffers with me.
With Him, I'll rise again.
Let the King descend,
Living Word made flesh,
Lift this heavy heart to Your throne,
O God.
In His wounds I find
Room for all of mine.
When from grace I fell,
Christ was lower still.
'Til the earth is filled,
Christ is lower still.
We lift it all up to You, Lord.
We lift our heads, we lift our hands,
We lift it all up to You, Lord.
We lift our dreams, we lift our plans,
We lift it all up to You, Lord.
We lift our sorrow and our pain,
We lift it all up to You, Lord.
We cast our cares on You again.
We lift it all up to You, Lord.
Other Thoughtful Considerations:
Many blessings of peace and presence,
Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan
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