Returning to Joy

Debra: Hi, my name is Debra from Minnesota, and I’m a Revive Our Hearts Monthly Partner. One reason I decided to support this ministry is I recently went to the True Woman conference in Indiana, and her teaching had such an impact on my life, as I’m sure it had on the other 5,000 women there. But there were so many more that couldn’t be there, so I felt it was important to support this ministry so that more people can be exposed to her teaching. I hope you enjoy today’s episode of Revive Our Hearts brought to you in part by the Monthly Partner Team.

Dannah Gresh: When you go through difficult circumstances, it might be tempting to question God’s plan, but Colleen Chao says the pain is worth it.

Colleen Chao: God can return us to joy, and it makes the joy more significant and meaningful that we walk through the yucky, awful, ugly moments, and we’re reminded of what we are apart from Christ.

Dannah: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Heaven Rules, for Thursday, March 16, 2023. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: You may have heard me share before how it was said of Puritan author John Bunyan, who wrote Pilgrim’s Progress, that he had “bibline blood.” Now, what does that mean? Well, it meant that he had so much Scripture in his heart and in his head, that if you pricked him, or if he suffered, or he went through a hard time, what he would bleed was Scripture.

I’ve often said, “I want to have bibline blood. And I think our guest today has bibline blood, too.

In the eyes of many, Colleen Chao has had more than her fair share of suffering. Difficult years of singleness turned out to be just the beginning. After her marriage, she dealt with chronic illness of both herself and her son. Then she received perhaps the most devastating diagnosis possible: terminal cancer, cancer throughout her body.

Many people would say that Colleen has every right to hunker down and feel sorry for herself, but that’s not her attitude. Although she continues to live through unimaginable pain and a sentence of death, she is a woman who is filled with joy.

And, as I said, her blood is bibline. She is always quoting Scripture, referring to it. It’s what bleeds out of her is the Word and the ways of God.

Well, recently Dannah had a conversation with Colleen, and they talked about this cancer journey. Colleen started by taking us back to the day she found out that the doctors had no hope of a cure for her. Here’s Colleen.

Colleen: It’s always hard to put that day into words because it’s those other worldly moments that we all have when something comes crashing in. Bad news, shocking news that upends our life. And so I struggle to make sense of it still with words. But it was almost like God put us in a bubble of grace to help us navigate the first hours of that. There was just a lot of the Spirit in those first moments.

I remember I was at my appointment alone, through a variety of circumstances, which we just shake our heads now, when I heard the news. The doctor gave a timeline and said, “This isn’t curable.” I just sat there. There was a poise that doesn’t make sense. In that moment just by myself, kind of just feeling the wave crash hard, there was a composure that was obviously the Spirit just holding me together.

When I walked out to my car, I called my husband. But before or after that, I forget which. I think it was even before I called my husband, I just sensed the Spirit pressing on my heart that there was still work to do and that He wanted me to write because it was one of the reasons He was entrusting this diagnosis to me.

I got in my car and I Marco Polo-ed my best friend, who had been praying. After I talked to my husband, I got together with my husband whom I met in a grocery store parking lot. We held on to each other, and then we headed home where my parents had my son. We walked in, and God just gave so much grace in those moments just to share with my then nine-year old this crazy news. We wept hard, and then we kept weeping for days and weeks.

Those were the first moments.

Dannah: Tell me a little bit about how your son responded that first day. Like, what did he turn to for comfort?

Colleen: Well, the way I’ve shared it in those moments . . . Like, how do you share that kind of thing? But I sat with him, and I just said, “There is some hard news. God has given me some more time with you, but it’s on a timeline.”

We’ve always been upfront and honest with him, so I didn’t hold back. My husband and I decided to just share with him so that he could see God walk us through it. As soon as he kind of absorbed the first news of it, he walked out of the room and crawled into his bed. My parents were there, and my husband and I just slipped away. My parents were absorbing this.

This is hard news for everyone that it touches. But I slipped away, and I just crawled into bed with my son and held him. We just wept and wept and wept, just unspeakable weeping, you know?

And then we just started talking. I said, “You tell us everything, anything. You can say anything. You can ask anything. Nothing is off limits. We want to walk through this together.”

And so we just started talking about really hard things in the following days and weeks. But as we talked about those hard things, we talked about God’s witness. It was sacred parenting, if that makes sense.

No parent knows how to do this. There’s no class on this. There’s no preparation for this. But the Spirit holds our hands. Jesus holds our hands. Like Psalm 73 says, “He holds my hand and guides me with His counsel.” And that’s what He was doing, and He was giving sacred parenting moments with my son to point him to what lasts.

Dannah: In your book you talk about how your son, Jeremy, said, “Can we read the story of the fiery furnace?” It’s just like a child in the middle of our suffering to run to the Lord. 

Colleen: Yes.

Dannah: Tell us about that.

Colleen: Yes. So that was my first cancer diagnosis. That was November 20, 2017. At that point he was six. And again, we were just upfront. “So this is really hard news. This was not good news. But God is going to do something in this. He’s going to be good to us in this.”

And at six years old you could see his brain working and processing. And he asked, “Can we read . . .?” It just seemed so random, but so of God, that he would say, “Can we read the story of the fiery furnace?”

My husband opened the Bible and read the story. And most of those listening right now will be super familiar with that story, just how King Nebuchadnezzar looks into that furnace where he’s thrown three God-followers, God-worshipers, and he sees four. And he says, “Who’s the fourth? It looks like the Son of the gods,” or something like that. (I’m paraphrasing right now.)

Dannah: Well, I have it here. Let me read it. It’s Daniel 3:24–25, 

Then King Nebuchadnezzar jumped up in alarm. He said to his advisors, “Didn’t we throw three men bound into the fire?”

“Yes, of course, your majesty,” they replied to the king.

He exclaimed, “Look! I see four men, not tied, walking around in the fire, unharmed; and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”

I get chills every time I read that.

Colleen: Yes, yes, yes. It brings me joy to hear that again and again. Eddie closed the Bible. And Jeremy . . . there was this pause, like a pregnant pause. Then he said, “There are four of us in this family.”

And the fact that God would care for my son in those moments where I didn’t even know what to do. You’re doing the best you can by God’s grace to walk your kid through the unspeakable, but God was there with us. He was taking Jeremy by the hand and walking him through something that was turning his life upside down. And He was telling Jeremy, “I’m going to be with you. I am with you in this furnace.”

That’s just gorgeous goodness.

Dannah: He is with us in those times of acute suffering in a way, a nearness that we don’t know at other times. And you say that you’ve discovered a tenderness in that. Tell me about that.

Colleen: I really have. It’s just like God to do things that are upside down and inside out to us. Right? His kingdom works backwards. (I’m paraphrasing.) That’s a way that C.S. Lewis put it, but the idea that the first will be last, the last will be first.

It’s opposite. The greatest will be the least, the least will be the greatest. You lose your life to gain it. All these upside down, backwards things to our finite minds.

It’s crazy that the harshest, hardest, most grievous moments have always, in my life, have always shown me the love and tenderness of God. That doesn’t make sense.

And it’s not that He spares me or us from feeling the full weight of those moments. It’s not that He alleviates the suffering. It’s not that He takes away the pain. But in walking with Him through those moments, we find what our hearts are really craving. It’s His love.

I first started experiencing that in singleness, where it just didn’t make sense to experience the love of God, really. For the first time in my life I was experiencing His love . . . and in a palpable way.

And He’s since then, in a couple few decades since then, I just marvel that He reveals His tender love to us in the circumstances that should harden us, that should be off-putting. And sometimes they do. Right? We respond to suffering in different ways at different times. It can harden us. It can make us resentful toward God at times. But He’s so faithful to keep walking with us and softening our heart and revealing His love.

I want to share this quote I just love. It’s fresh on my heart. It’s by Samuel Rutherford from the 1600s. He says, “Put Christ’s love to the trial and put upon it burdens, and then it will appear love indeed.” I just love that. It’s when it’s put to the test that we actually experience it.

Dannah: That’s so true.

Were there moments for you, have there been moments for you where your heart could have gotten hard? Where you could have gotten angry? Or maybe you did?

Colleen: Yes.

Dannah: Briefly? Momentarily?

Colleen: Yes. Absolutely.

Dannah: Tell us about that.

Colleen: I think that’s why I love the psalms so much. I have lived so much in the psalms because my experience is put into words by David and Asaph and all the people who wrote the psalms. You can come to the Lord and say, “I’m bitter. I’m angry. My heart is hard right now, and I know it. I don’t like it, but this is where I’m at.”

This is part of the human experience, to have these negative emotions. Sometimes we are not self-aware enough to see it even happening. That’s where the Word is so powerful, because it reflects to us what’s going on in our hearts. It exposes what’s in our hearts.

That’s why I love clinging to the Word and living by it, because it shows me, like Hebrews 4:12–13 says, 

The Word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. No creature is hidden from him, but all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.

I just love that when I’m wrestling with God, and my heart is hard, and I don’t think He’s fair, and I’ve even had moments where I just feel like He’s mean. Isn’t that crazy? But I can tell Him that, and He can handle it. And the Word softens my heart. It changes my heart. It changes my mind. It changes my brain.

Dannah: I am still . . . I don’t know, after thirty years of being in the Word every day with a hunger and a passion, I’m always amazed at how different I am at the end of thirty, forty, fifty or sixty minutes of time alone with God in the Word. I’m like, “Who was I before?”

I’m not much without the Word, without His presence in me, shaping me, and forming me. And that’s particularly true in those trying times.

Colleen: Yes. I love how you said that.

Dannah: You have some of the most infectious laughter of anyone I’ve ever known. You have a gorgeous smile. And it’s not different from the first day I met you a few years ago, when you were already in the battle. And here you are, still smiling.

What would you say to someone who’s in a place of suffering, and they’ve lost their smile? They’ve lost their joy? Where would they go? What’s their first step?

Colleen: Well, actually, I write about that in Fiercely Tender, because there was a season in my life where I didn’t even notice it, but I’d stopped laughing. I want to say this was about nine, ten years ago. Life was so heavy. This was even before cancer. But it doesn’t have to be cancer, right? We all face stuff that can just wear us to the end of ourselves.

At that point, it was just chronic illness for myself or my son, financial upheaval, loss of job, a flooded apartment—all the things. I had just lost my joy. So I get it. I’m not always joyful now. There’s lots of grumpiness and ugliness that comes out of me. Even last night, and I had to apologize to my husband this morning. I’m, “Thank you for being patient with me.”

Dannah: I had the same conversation with my husband this morning. (laughter) When I sat down with my time with the Lord this morning, I said, “Hello, Jesus. It’s me, your grumpy daughter.” (laughter)

Colleen: Well, we’re good company this morning. Yes. It’s real. But what I started praying for many years ago was that God would give me joy. I remember an older woman who was just so sweet in my life. She said, “How would you want me to pray for you?” 

And I said, “Pray for joy.” This was probably sixteen years ago. It was just something the Spirit put on my heart to pray for, to want, knowing what was going to come.

I would say to that person who is feeling a lack of joy, to ask God for what you don’t have. He is so happy and willing to give us the things that we don’t have. That’s where He loves to meet us.

I have this little habit during the night—I pray through A-B-C Scriptures. The first one is, “Ask, and it will be give to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you.”

And that’s not a name it-and claim it. That’s not health and wealth. That’s a, “God, You say Your will is ____” and fill in the blank what Scripture says.

That we would trust Him.
That we would love Him.
That we would love others.

The things that He says clearly in His Word that He wants us to live, He says ask for it. And so I’ve boldly asked for those things.

Then I think of Psalm (I want to say 34. I’m going to look it up as I say it), but, “Those who look to Him are radiant. Their faces will never be covered in shame.”

I think just that constant looking at Christ, going to Him again and again and again, no matter our condition, no matter where we’re at. Yes, it’s Psalm 34:5, “Those who look to Him are radiant with joy. Their faces will never be ashamed.”

We look at God, and He is the epitome of joy. He’s the most, andI want to say it’s Psalm 45 that says, “Jesus is the most radiant of all His companions.”

Dannah: I’m mindful of how much of what you’re talking about is an invitation to honesty.

Colleen: Oh, yes.

Dannah: To not fake it through joy. To not say the right words or smile when you don’t feel like it, but to go honestly before God and admit, “This is where I am.”

Colleen: Yes.

Dannah: I feel like sometimes, as Christian women, we don’t think we have that permission. We do feel like we have to say when someone says, “How are you?”

“Oh, I’m okay,.” or “I’m fine.”

Colleen: Yes.

Dannah: We’re not fine. We’re suffering.

Colleen: Yes. I’m glad you bring that up because I think it’s easy to see the fruit of a lot of years of asking God for something and seeing Him give it in abundance, but the raw and real moments . . . I get joy being around people. Sometimes I communicate an energy that my body really doesn’t have because people bring me joy.

But if I get with those people, and they ask good questions, I can get raw and real and say, “Just last week I was . . . I mean, a couple of weeks ago I was hiding behind my recliner from my husband and son just because I was done.”

And it was the most ridiculous thing. I had hurt my finger, and I was just like, “It’s one more pain. It’s one more physical pain, and it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. I was, like, “I don’t want to hurt in one more way.” I hid behind my recliner like a small, sad child, and I wept, and I got angry at God.

So those moments highlight the fact that God can return us to joy, and it makes the joy more significant and meaningful that we walk through the yucky, awful, ugly moments, and we’re reminded of what we are apart from Christ.

Without Him, I’m a total train wreck. If I am not in the Word for two days, no one wants to be around me. 

Dannah: Yes. Same. I get it.

And I think, too, in the suffering and in the stretching, He’s trying to get us to be honest with ourselves. Not just with Him, but honest with ourselves.

Colleen: Yes.

Dannah: This morning I was in Genesis where Jacob wrestled with God. And the man who is God or a representation of God man asked, “What’s your name?”

Now, He knows what is his name. And the name Jacob, of course, we understand when we study the Scriptures, means deceiver. I’m the deceiver. And so he says, “Deceiver.” And then the man says, “Your name will no longer be deceiver, but Israel because you have struggled with God and have overcome.”

And so I think God was just trying to say, “Hey, Jacob, can we be honest? Like, you don’t really need to be honest with Me. It’s yourself you need to be honest with.”

Colleen: Yes.

Dannah: In my suffering, so many times I have played the perfect-picture Christian woman. And not being perfect picture doesn’t mean that I throw tantrums or I’m unkind or I hurt people. But there are appropriate places where you say to the people closest to you and to the Lord, “I don’t like where I am. Here’s how I’m struggling with it. I’m grumpy today. I’m deceptive today. Angry today.”

And in that place, that’s where God can say, “Awww, okay. I just needed you to see the truth, and now I can start to set your heart free.”

Colleen: Yes.

Dannah: We’ve got to be honest. Right?

Colleen: We really do. I think sometimes I forget, even with my best friends. I talk with them daily on our video app, and sometimes I’ve grown so accustomed to processing the worst stuff with God that I forget to bring others along in the process. I’ve realized that I am so deeply broken and ugly and hurtful that I’ve learned to process a lot with Him before I process with people.

And now, I need my people to process with, and I choose who they are. I’m very selective. The truth is, not everyone can take the full weight of our train wreck. Like, no one here is designed to take the full weight. So by me going to God first, He gets the whole crazy, and then I go to my people—my husband, my best friends, trusted counselors, spiritual directors, and I process with them deeply and faithfully.

So by the time I communicate, sometimes I forget. “Oh, I’ve communicated so much through this that I need to help other people see my process.” I think sometimes I’m guilty of that. So I’m glad you are chatting through this because I think that’s really important.

Dannah: Well, God has created us as social beings. Mostly, first and foremost, that we can be friends with Him, in relationship with Him. Right?

Colleen: Yes.

Dannah: But we’re supposed to be in relationship with each other. I find that the healthier my relationship with God is, the healthier my relationship with others is, and vice versa. As my relationships are clean and open and honest and authentic on earth, I feel this openness to God. And I don’t know which comes first—the chicken or the egg—but I know they both matter so very much.

Colleen: Yes. He shows that in the Trinity, in the Godhead. It’s relational. He’s a relational God. He shows us that in the Father, Son, and the Spirit. It’s so beautiful. You’re exactly right. He models that for us in Himself, which is amazing.

Nancy: Yes, it is. That’s my friend Colleen Chao in conversation with Dannah Gresh reminding us that Jesus is the ultimate example of endurance and joy in the midst of suffering.

Colleen doesn’t talk about suffering from just a theoretical perspective. She’s in the middle of very real, very painful suffering, and yet she is so joyful and servant hearted that she puts a lot of us to shame.

You may be dealing with pain and brokenness on a similar level as Colleen is, or maybe at the moment your life is relatively comfortable. But sooner or later you will face some kind of suffering. And when you do, will you respond with joy or with impatience and anger? Will you trust that God is good, and He has a loving plan for your life?

Colleen understands those struggles. She wrote a book as she was facing this terminal cancer diagnosis, a book that will help you or perhaps someone you love endure suffering. Colleen’s book is called In the Hands of a Fiercely Tender God. I love that. It’s a 31-day devotional book that is full of biblical truth.

I think this book will be helpful for you in your own suffering or as you prepare for upcoming trials or, as I said, as you walk through difficult circumstances with others. This week we want to send you a copy of Colleen’s book when you give to help support the ministry of Revive Our Hearts. Without your help, we wouldn’t be able to reach women with the hope of the gospel that can sustain them in their suffering.

You can get in touch with us at ReviveOurHearts.com, or call 1-800-569-5959. When you make your gift, be sure to ask for Colleen’s book, a 31-day devotional, In the Hands of a Fiercely Tender God.

Now, our team has produced a series of videos telling more of Colleen’s story. We’ve put a link to those in the transcript of today’s program so you can watch them. You can find it at ReviveOurHearts.com. Oh, be sure you’ve got a Kleenex with you when you watch!

Dannah: I think a lot of the stuff we’ve talked about today has been helpful for us when we’re in our suffering—whether it’s a physical suffering, a relational suffering, a financial suffering. You talked about the pain of being single and walking through that. Sometimes that can be a suffering that the Lord is using to mold and shape us.

What we really haven’t talked about is how to minister to other people when they’re suffering. Would you maybe come back tomorrow, and we can talk about that?

Colleen: I would love that.

Dannah: Great. And I hope you will be back tomorrow for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants to help you endure through suffering so that you can experience freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.