Discipleship | “Breaking Open” with Jacob Armstrong

Shownotes:

Today’s episode covers some heavy topics--suicide, depression, mental health and physical health issues--with hope. Our guest, Jacob Armstrong, is the author of Breaking Open: How Your Pain Becomes the Path to Living Again. As a pastor and a person, Jacob has firsthand experience not only with his own pain and suffering, but those of the people around him--his family, his friends, and his congregation. All these experiences led Jacob to the idea of breaking open, not just breaking down or breaking in, but allowing real Christian hope and God’s joy and delight to find you in those dark places.

Jacob and his wife Racel helped found Providence Church in Mt. Juliet, TN, in 2008. He is an author and a pastor. He and Rachel have three daughters, Mary, Lydia, and Phoebe.

Resources:

Find Jacob online and on social media:
Website: http://www.jacob-armstrong.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/provpastor

Breaking Open

Website: www.breakingopenbook.com
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0785258329?tag=hcads-20

Transcript:

Chris McAlilly 00:00

Hi, I'm Chris McAlilly. Welcome to The Weight. I'm here today without Eddie. He had something that came up as we were going into recording. But I'm joined today by a good friend of mine named Jacob Armstrong. Jacob is a pastor in Mt Juliet, Tennessee, which is just outside of Nashville. The church is called Providence Church, and Jacob has written a book and released it this year. The book is called "Breaking Open: How Your Pain Becomes a Path to Living Again."

Chris McAlilly 00:32

In the conversation, we talk about some experiences from his life ,moments where he has broken down, but he's learned to break open into a deeper kind of faith and also, you know, a more healthy kind of space mentally, emotionally, and otherwise. So we talked about the intersection between faith and mental health. We talk about hope in the face of very dark, hard things. I want you to be aware, if it's something that you've struggled with in the past, we do talk in the conversation about depression and even suicide. I want to make sure that you're aware of that on the front end. But we do... It's a very hopeful conversation. It's not just all dark. We have fun, we laugh, and there's some very practical steps that can be taken if you find yourself in a hard place. I think you'll find it to be a conversation full of hope.

Chris McAlilly 01:34

We talk about the role of delight in children, the ways in which other people and community and friendship and even family can be a path into into the light, into joy. And it's a wonderful conversation, and it's a good book. And I think to this longer conversation we've been having about what it means to be disciples, this is where discipleship and faith really hit the reality of life and some of the more difficult things that we can experience. And it gives us, I think, a way into hope. So we're glad you're here today. Glad you've joined us on The Weight. If you'd like to find more episodes, you can go to our website, theweightpodcast.com. You can also leave us a review. We always love to hear from you. Like it, share it. Thanks for joining us on The Weight.

Eddie Rester 02:26

[INTRO] Life can be heavy. We carry around with us the weight of our doubt, our pain, our suffering, our mental health, our family system, our politics. This is a podcast to create space for all of that.

Chris McAlilly 02:38

We want to talk about these things with humility, charity, and intellectual honesty. But more than that, we want to listen. It's time to open up our echo chamber. Welcome to The Weight. [END INTRO]

Chris McAlilly 02:53

Well, we're here today with a good friend, for I don't know how many years we've known one another, Jacob, but several years now, Jacob Armstrong. We're so glad that you're on the podcast today.

Jacob Armstrong 03:07
Thank you, Chris, I've been looking forward to it and appreciate the opportunity to share a little bit.

Chris McAlilly 03:11

Just Jacob and me. We're going to jump into a conversation about a book that Jacob has written called "Breaking Open." I want to get into that. But maybe for folks who don't know you, tell us a little bit about yourself and where you are and what you do.

Jacob Armstrong 03:28

Yeah, thanks, Chris. Again, it's great to be with you. And I love your podcast and appreciate the weighty things y'all go into. And I'm glad to be here. I'm the pastor of Providence Church, which is just outside of Nashville, in a community called Mt Juliet. There actually is an area called Providence, and we're in that. And my wife and I and some other folks had the great privilege of helping start Providence Church in 2008. So for a long time, I was considered a church planter of a new church, but I don't really think I am that anymore. Just pastor of a have a great church, 14 years old. And we've seen, you know, a lot of beautiful things happen here and a lot of the stories that I'll tell in the book kind of grew out of that experience of being a part of a new, growing community and new, growing church community.

Chris McAlilly 04:19

You mentioned just kind of weighty topics. And one of the things that you get into really, really early in the book is a story that I've heard you tell in other contexts about a young man who you got to know in your neighborhood. And I wonder maybe if you're willing to kind of get into just a bit of the stories that kind of shape the heart of the book. It sounds like you know, this particular individual was important to you and the weight of his loss is a big part of kind of helping shape the way you think about some of these things.

Jacob Armstrong 04:56

Yeah, you're exactly right. It was kind of the first weighty matter, the first breaking time for me in my life probably, but also specifically in ministry, and it is the opening story of the book, which, for me sort of frames the the rest of it. It's a weighty story.

Jacob Armstrong 05:15

So I had a neighbor kid, his name was Daniel and I was a 22-year-old seminary student. So at the time, I was working at a local church, First United Methodist Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, but I would drive to my seminary an hour away every day. So it was a busy time. Rachel and I were just married. And we had this neighbor kid who was always hanging out around us. We befriended him, you know, he's sort of kind of like a guy who had some stuff going on at home and found a place with us, you know, in the hammock in the backyard or out for walks. And so we just really grew to love him. And also, I remember thinking of him as an interruption in my life. You know, because I had a lot going on, and it's like, you come home, and then there he is, you know, he's hanging out with us or eating dinner or going for a walk.

Jacob Armstrong 06:01

And one night, he came to our house. It was a Saturday night, which is like a school night for me. You know, I'd gone to bed early. So it wasn't super late, maybe 10 o'clock. It was a winter night. And I had fallen asleep on the couch. And he came to the door. He wouldn't come in the house, which was sort of strange, just stood on the welcome mat, right inside the door. He had this big winter coat on. I just knew something was not right. I was asking him about that. And he told me some things, but I was sort of sleepy, you know, and my last encouragement to him was I just said, Hey, go home, wake up your dad, I can tell something's not right. Just tell him what's going on. And, you know, we'll talk tomorrow. And he left our front door and took his own life. I was the last person he talked to.

Jacob Armstrong 06:52

So I know now that was a sort of goodbye moment for him, you know, but I didn't know that at the time. And it crushed me. I don't know. That's not the right word. It felt like I came apart. You know, and it wasn't. It's just a kid I knew and I loved and I was working with lots of teenagers at the time. And I just thought, if ever I was going to have a chance to do good, that I had squandered it. That was really what hit my heart. So I talked about that in the book, how I went to a dark place in that, sort of a giving up place, definitely a breaking place. And then through a lot of grace, and a lot of good people, that ended up being a breaking moment for me, that has impacted my whole life. So that's what I call breaking open.

Jacob Armstrong 07:36

So instead of breaking down, or, you know, breaking in a way that I was done, I broke open. I didn't know how to do that. It's just sort of what happened over the course of a year. So I tell that story once a year at my church. It's an important kind of foundational story from my life. And then there's also lots of people who have had suicide close to them. Rachel and I've had that in our family since then with a young teenage member of our family. So I know there's many people who that affects and and that is a journey of breaking.

Chris McAlilly 08:10

Yeah, I appreciate you sharing. We had a conversation, I don't remember when it was, if it was this season or in a previous season with a guy named John Swinton. He writes about kind of the intersection of faith and mental health, depression and the ways in which folks can get so deep into such a dark place, that it's not sadness. You know, if you're sad, you kind of know what you're sad about. But if you're depressed, it's just kind of the whole world is dark, bleak. And, you know, he talks a lot about, like, how to navigate that both for practitioners, people that are pastors or mental health providers, but also for people who are going. You know, he talks with a lot of people who have experienced the diagnosis of depression or navigating really difficult mental health matters.

Chris McAlilly 09:10

And yeah, and that's a topic that we've come back to again and again on the podcast is how to navigate that space. And hearing you preach through the years and kind of engaging the book a little bit, that's very much kind of... You occupy that space. You're thinking about kind of the intersection of our physical, mental, emotional health. How did that become one of the frames for you and the way that you think about ministry, the way you think about being a pastor, and in some of the ways in which you kind of engage here in the book?

Jacob Armstrong 09:45

Yeah, I appreciate that attentiveness, Chris, because I feel like that has become the frame. And for me, it just naturally arose out of local church ministry. And most of... I shouldn't say that. A lot of what I encounter is breaking in lots of different ways. I know you've been in that place for a long time, too. And so for, you know, for some, I think we're trying to move out of breaking or avoid breaking, avoid pain, avoid suffering. And of course, that is not something that that any of us can do. And then when you do like us, and you're sharing from the Bible every week, we see that are our heroes, the characters, the women and men there, I think are in those places of, are you going to break down or are you going to break open?

Jacob Armstrong 10:31

So when we started the church, Nehemiah was sort of my spiritual partner, my biblical partner in that, and the whole story starts with his heart breaking over his city, over his land, over his people. It says he was on the ground for many days, mourning and fasting and praying. Well, that sounds like a breakdown, if you're, you know, like, on the ground crying. And, so, you know, we see Nehemiah and then so many others, that's just one example, where he gets up, and he sees his breaking as an opportunity for really what his whole life was meant to be about, which is restoring people, both physically and spiritually, geographically, rebuilding a wall, rebuilding a town. And so it's a choice, I think, that we have to make a lot, of how are we going to go at this thing called life.

Jacob Armstrong 11:19

I heard, I read this quote just last night, so I don't have it memorized. But I wrote it down in thinking about our conversation. There's a book called "A Grace Disguised" by a guy named Jerry Sittser. And he said, he learned that the quickest way to reach the sun and the light of day is not to run west chasing after it, but to head into the darkness until you finally reach the sunrise. And I wish that I'd had that quote when I wrote the book, because that's what it's about. It's like, it's actually going deeper into the suffering, being authentic about it, honest about it. I think that's truly the life journey. When I say life journey, I mean, like the Christ journey, that he has that ultimate breaking open of the tomb, you know, but it was also his body.

Chris McAlilly 12:04

Yeah, I think Nehemiah is an interesting, just an interesting biblical story. So for those that are maybe less familiar with it, you have this moment where the nation of Israel, they go off into exile, and they come back to the land. And there are certain things that get done over the course of Ezra, Nehemiah, the two books that are kind of about this. They reestablish a pattern of worship. They reestablish the walls and the boundaries. They create structures, both for time and for space.

Chris McAlilly 12:35

And I feel like the folks that I know that have navigated really, really hard things, you've got to have a language for it, you know, you've got to find a way to give voice to those things that are happening within you, around you. And, you know, worship, prayer, the Psalms, the words of kind of agony and thanksgiving that you see there, they kind of give a structure to it, you know. There's a kind of... That's part of the work is to take the ambiguity of this moment of crisis, or this moment of breaking, that doesn't have a form, it doesn't have a language, and you have to kind of create not a box for it. But like, you've got to have a way of thinking about it and talking about it, and a space for it to live. I wonder kind of how you think about that, you know, in your own life, and as you try to navigate hard things with folks who are in crisis situations, or trauma situations, or they're breaking?

Jacob Armstrong 13:40

You used the word "structure," and then at the end, you used the word "space." And I think those two words are really helpful in thinking about how to walk into the breaking moment. So the second chapter of the book, I talk about this juxtaposition, I guess, between space and pace. So a lot of times what I see people doing in breaking times and hurting times, what I see myself doing, is we feel the inclination to increase the pace. That's sort of what our world is set up to do. And so, what I think God is inviting us, to use the word structure, you know, it's a space. There's space where we actually get to live, but we have to do some things that create that and get some room for us to encounter the goodness of God in those in those hard times. It's more difficult when we're just pushing forward and pushing along all the time.

Jacob Armstrong 14:41

So I talk in the book a little bit about how you know, some practical ways to just take a breath and some times in life and create intentional space where you can breathe and live. So I have a funeral today after the podcast with someone who lost their spouse after 40 years, and in talking to him, you know, I could see that franticness because everything feels lost and different in the absence of that person. And whether it's a person loss or another kind of grief that you might be encountering, your heart rate increases, in a sense, and you start increasing the pace. And I would, you know, hopefully, would want to be a gentle guide to try to create space in the midst of that, so you can more aptly deal with what's really going on. I realized I was going so fast at a time in my life, that I had a really good chance of getting some decades down the road, and not really have dealt with stuff, and being sort of a shell of who I am. So

Chris McAlilly 15:50

Yeah, I feel like, you know, I think that one of the ways, I don't know, one of the ways I deal with things, you just kind of put your head back down and you just get back to work, you know, or get back to whatever life looks like for you. And I think that I do think that there's wisdom in engaging that stuff. But it can be hard, you know, I mean, it can be scary. I've got a good friend of mine, who, you know, I'm encouraging, you need to get a counseling. Not because there's something wrong with you, but like, you got to have some space to deal with some of the things that any normal person who is looking at what you're going through would say you need to kind of have some time to process those things and to figure out and gain some perspective on them and figure out what they're going to mean for you and how you're going to navigate and tell the story about the thing. But it's hard to do that if you've never engaged, if you've never taken that step. It's hard to know even where to start sometimes.

Jacob Armstrong 16:52

Yeah, to do it, you have to, there first has to be some moment of noticing, right? Noticing the need for it, noticing where you're headed. For me I was I think 30, 38 or something like that, had been started, a decade in starting the church and life had been fast paced and fun and meaningful. But I had this moment. I was sitting on the front porch. My youngest daughter Phoebe was probably seven or so at the time, and Phoebe's like, you know, who everyone would want to hang out with. I remember at the time like just really into like dinosaurs and adventure and alpacas and that kind of thing. And so she came out, I was sitting on the front porch and I remember her saying, "Hey, Dad, you want to play?" And I said no. And it's okay to say no to your kids in playing, but it was a notice moment for me when she walked away. I asked myself, why did you say no to playing with Phoebe, this person you delight in? You know, if somebody had asked me outside of the situation, what's one of your favorite things to do or to be and it would have been being with Phoebe. And so there was a notice moment. It sounds insignificant. It was really significant to me to think that it was my natural reaction to say no to something that I really loved and that I'd want to be a part of.

Jacob Armstrong 18:09

And actually that's what sent me to counseling. In a nutshell is, I went and said, what's going on with me? I mean, I was experiencing some numbness, a different kind of fatigue, you know, that kind of fatigue where I didn't just need a weekend off or even a vacation. There was something much deeper. I found myself just sort of sitting on top of that ache. So that's what I'm talking about. I think we have to notice the ache that we feel. I think it's a God-given ache and a longing in the midst of the brokenness of this world. So once we notice it, I talked about in the book, then you have to interrupt that. You have to interrupt that pace in some way. Something has to change or jar that to get your heart's attention.

Jacob Armstrong 18:49

I've had a life of anxiety. That's sort of my deal. You probably hear to my voice, because I talk fast and all that. And one of the things the counselor helped me to see is I created some patterns and cycles for a long time in my life that I needed to interrupt. If not, I would just kind of keep going in that circle of feeling anxiety, then isolating, then knowing that I'd let people down, and having some shame and then feeling depressed, you know. And so if I can notice it earlier, I can step out of that, totally out of that path, and go run out in the yard with a kid, you know, and then all of a sudden I'm outside of it.

Chris McAlilly 19:23

Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, you read business books, and they talk about like, you know, virtuous cycles, or just kind of the opposite of virtuous cycles that you can create cycles that actually kind of lead you in the direction of something like joy or you can kind of find yourself kind of caught in cycles of anxiety and isolation and to feel like you're letting people down into shame and into depression. I mean, that cycle. I mean, I think, you know, people recognize that, people know the cycles that they find themselves in that lead to dark places.

Chris McAlilly 20:07

This conversation, it just reminds me of this other conversation we had with this guy, John Swinton. One of the things he talks about for people who are feeling deep anxiety and depression is that they lose touch with joy, like even the idea that it's possible. And there's something about kids that can kind of break through that, you know, like kids, the absence of self consciousness, the absence of just... playing with dinosaurs on the floor, there is a kind of delight that we take in children, and like, we have access to joy through the presence of children that can break through. You know, it can be a reminder that it is possible, that joy is out there in the world, and we do have access to it. It can be hard, though, you know, I mean. It can be. If you get into a really dark place, that's one of the things that you can lose touch with the possibility of joy.

Jacob Armstrong 20:59

Sure, yeah. And I'm not wanting to substitute for any of the kind of normal or, you know, medical ways of dealing with that, but just in thinking about our hearts, our souls before God, I am a believer. You know, what we're talking about, in some ways, is Sabbath. Abraham Heschel says, the first thing that God calls holy is actually time, space. We so often want to make a place holy, which is cool, and that happens. But in the Bible, God sets aside time and space as holy before we start calling any kind of temple holy. That comes a little bit later. Or even even considering ourselves holy. So I think that's, you know, the invitation that God has given us.

Jacob Armstrong 21:45

I talk in the book that I ran into this verse, it's found several places where David is saying it, a few times where God, it says, "God placed me in a spacious place, because he delighted in me." And so, you know, I think a part of life is finding those spacious places where delight happens. And I think for those, you know, we all have some kind of tendency with our anxiety or being depressed or working too much, or whatever, to create those spaces. So, you know, in my late 30s, that's the invitation that Rachel and I really heard God giving to us is, what would it look like to start creating these spaces. We changed our vacation routine. We used to always go to the beach, which is what most people around here, I live in Nashville, and everybody drives straight down to the panhandle of Florida, which is awesome. But if you have little kids, you know, it's like, it's going to work, man, you got to take them to the beach every day.

Jacob Armstrong 22:40

So we just said, Let's totally interrupt that. We started going to this lake, random lake in Virginia, in the mountains. And it became this spacious place for us because it was different, and the Wi Fi didn't work good. And we had to figure out how to fish for tiny fish and, you know, lay in hammocks and jump off of docks. And we have these moments, these spaces, holy spaces that God created because we stepped out of it. And as a pastor, what I've learned, sitting with so many people who are at the end of life, and when they know it, what they talk about is, what I hear them talking about is just that: holy spaces, times. I rarely hear anybody talk about their pension or crushing it from, you know, middle management to some senior level. All those things are important, and they're good in life. But if you think about what people are grabbing on to at the end, it's holy spaces, because that's actually what they're about to transition into, into a much more holy and different space.

Jacob Armstrong 23:41
So I'm like, let's be intentional, as best we can. So tomorrow, I take in my daughter Phoebe out of school, you know, we get the absentee note that we're going to drive to Chattanooga, where her sister's in college and just show up and eat lunch with her and then we're gonna go down to--Chris knows I'm a big Braves fan--and we're gonna go watch the Braves and I somehow secured these passes to go onto the field after the game is over. Phoebe doesn't know. There's gonna be a firework show, and we're gonna like go down there. So that's a little bit of manipulation. But I look at it as intentionality. There could be a space created there, right, where we live and delight.

Chris McAlilly 24:18

So I just want to come back to delight because I think, I think that there's something there, where you experience some of these negative cycles or the cycles that lead you into a dark place or into the broken place. I do think I've just, I don't know, there's something. It's not just feelings of happiness. It's something more than that. It's the ways in which we can delight in people but you said it a different way. And it comes through in the book, that God leads us out into a spacious place and delights in us. The idea that God delights in us is a profound. That's a profound possibility. And I wonder if you would just talk through the way you think about that, you know, for you to delight in your girls. There's a dimension of that, that we delight in on the human plane, you know, that's a part of every relationship, but there's a dimension of it as well, it's kind of participating in this larger delight that God has in God's people. I wonder if you just riff on that or reflect on it?

Jacob Armstrong 25:22
Yeah, I've missed a word when I told you about the verse. So it says, "he brought me out into a spacious place. He rescued me, because he delighted in me." So the...

Chris McAlilly 25:32
You probably didn't miss it. I probably missed it there.

Jacob Armstrong 25:35

No, I think I did. I think I did. To me, it's like, it's that desperate, you know. We wouldn't think having some kind of joyful moment or being delighted in is something that's a rescue mission. But to God, it is. He brought me out into a spacious... It's in the spacious place where you're rescued to so God can delight. And yeah, I think it's a natural thing in aging and growing--I'm halfway probably into my life, I'm 42--where, you know, those instances where you would actually go to that place of delight is, maybe not harder, but it just does take a little more... I already used the word intention or focus to get there because as a child, you know, those delighting moments are a bit easier, or they were maybe in our day. I think it's harder to delight for kids now. But there's something holy, and something God given about that space, where that can happen.

Jacob Armstrong 26:41

And so, so often delight feels surprising, because we're not doing it all that often. And I don't think you can manipulate it. But I do think you can live in such a way and get out of the hole in such a way that it can happen more often and then more as a pattern in your life. And in the in the book, it's not, like, eight steps to do this. But I do kind of have a progression that I've seen, again, just reflecting on 20 years of being with people. That's all it is. It's just saying, hey, this is a way. I think it's the Jesus way. The way I describe it, it's not the only way to talk about it, where God is actually leading us out of these sort of crouched down places where we can get out in the open and live.

Jacob Armstrong 27:29

So one one other biblical example is Gideon. When God finds Gideon, he's in a wine press. And he's threshing wheat in a wine press. So it's a really interesting image that you have to unpack because I mean, I, you know, we don't really live in a time like that. But he's doing a agricultural method, threshing wheat, in a wine press, which is where wine is made. So we can see already it's like, he's doing something that's not supposed to be done in that place. Why? Why? Because the people of God had been pushed into these cliffs in caves. They were not... They were in the Promised Land, but they're living in caves in hiding, waiting for people who would get them. And he's having to make bread in a place where you would make wine. So there's all that stuff going on.

Jacob Armstrong 28:10

And I'm like, yeah, that's my life. You know, it's like, there's stuff I'm made for. But I'm too hunkered down, I'm staying in these hidden places, these afraid places. And so the invitation, you know, this angel meets, really God encounters Gideon and says, "The Lord is with you, mighty warrior." It's this great phrase, you know, where he's calling this guy who's hiding out a mighty warrior. So God speaking into him, delighting in him, and I won't do the whole Gideon story, but he gets out of that hole, and ends up doing all kinds of just risky, cool, dangerous, beautiful things, saving people, saving his family, taking down idols, all of that happens outside of the hole. And I think that's kind of a delight. That's my concept of delight. It's getting out of being hunkered down and weighted down into a place where you can breathe. I don't know, what it was like threshing wheat in a wine press. But you know, it's like, probably a lot of chaff in your throat. I guess. I don't know.

Chris McAlilly 29:14

Yeah. Yeah. I wonder, you know, I feel like one of the things that I've been thinking about in thinking about this book is, you know, we're in a college town, and I feel like college students, a lot of their lives are are under negotiation. They're still trying to figure out like, where's this thing going to go? And I was talking to a guy the other day. You remember on The Price Is Right? It was an analogy about how life goes and it's like The Price Is Right and there's this game and you drop things in at the very top and it like dings around.

Chris McAlilly 29:46

Plinko. That's what it is. Yeah, it dings around and every single choice or every little little peg can take it different directions. And then you kind of get all the way down the bottom and you kind of land. This guy was saying he has a college student right now he's like, I want my kids to make a few of those choices now, because whatever choices you make up here are gonna, like, determine where you land. But the thing is then life lands, you know, and you kind of get into the middle of it, and you've got your path, you know, you've got kind of the basic setup, and life's not really under negotiation anymore.

Chris McAlilly 30:20

And it seems like, you know, one of the things that you draw attention to is the way in which these moments of breaking create a second possibility. You know, what I mean? This sense of the possibility of an almost like a spiritual openness that could happen in those moments, if we would take hold of them. I don't know. I don't know that I have a question. I'm just kind of reflecting.

Jacob Armstrong 30:46

But it makes me think about, you know, that college, you know, there's the seeking after pleasure in a lot of ways, maybe like a hedonism of sorts. And then as adults, once we land, I see a lot of adults doing that same thing. It's like, how am I going to get enough pleasure? You know, is that going to be at the SEC football game? Is that going to be having this condo somewhere? We're seeking after all these things that really aren't joy-inducing or delight moments.

Jacob Armstrong 31:18

And so, you know, a scripture that's just foundational in my life is Paul talking in Second Corinthians about having a thorn in his side, you know, experiencing pain, suffering, and asking God to take it, to take it away. I've had some things in my life, health wise that I would be like, man, I just wish that was gone. I wish that would go away. But it's not. So in that it's a really cool moment in one of Paul's letters where you hear the words of Jesus, He says, "My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in your weakness." So then Paul says--this where I'm headed--he says, "I would rather boast all the more gladly."

Jacob Armstrong 31:59

And the Greek word is actually that same, like, "hedone." It's like that same. His boasting, his gladness, he says, I'd rather boast more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. So this Christian secret is that the suffering, the pain, the weakness is actually the place where the most life comes from as we lower ourselves like Christ. And so Christians do this weird thing. We don't say we're without suffering. We actually boast in our weaknesses, because, as that scripture says, in my weakness, he is strong. So I think the most joy is found in really going into the depths of your suffering and your brokenness, encountering it, sharing it, boasting about it, as Paul would say. And it's in that place that you're not hunkering down anymore, or just seeking out your vain pleasures, but you're getting to that real joy, that real Christian life joy, that is not independent from the suffering, but it's just all in it, you know. It's paradoxical, of course, but you know, it's good stuff.

Chris McAlilly 33:01

Yeah. And I think, you know, what you end up with there is not just kind of the... There is a kind of simplicity to the image that you're sharing of you and Phoebe and the dinosaurs, and you didn't have access to that at the moment. But there is a kind of, there's a simple pleasure in there, a simple delight. There's something far more, not more profound, it's just there's a level of depth to the kind of mutual joy that can come when two people have gone through something really, really, really hard. And they've helped one another share it. They've shared this journey or navigated this journey together.

Chris McAlilly 33:38

So I think about folks in our church who are on a cancer journey, and you know, they're navigating a hard diagnosis, the ups and downs of surgery and to radiation and to kind of the long-term effects, or kind of the long-term ambiguity that comes with that kind of a diagnosis. Or I think of people who are in recovery, the recovery communities, and they're navigating something super, super hard with addiction or, you know, problems, challenges with substances or with alcohol. And there's a kind of mutual joy that can come when together we navigate these difficult things together.

Chris McAlilly 34:20

And I do think that that's another dimension of it, that a Christ-centered life or, you know, something. You know, it's part of the beauty of Christian communities, you get to see people walk through hard things together and experience a kind of mutual delight or mutual joy.

Jacob Armstrong 34:34

Yeah, yeah, I mean, life would be really, like, it'd be more pleasurable if there was no hard things, but it's just not, though. That's not an option for anybody. And so clearly... Well, let me go back to that story at the beginning with the kid you know, who committed suicide who I loved and who I knew. I ended up, I was in full time seminary, I ended up asking my brother if I could come visit him. He lived in Arizona, my brother's a geologist and a national park guy. And so I get on a flight to go to Arizona. I'm running away. You know, I'm, like, an adult barely, married guy, who... I just, I couldn't deal. I didn't know how to deal with... I didn't know how to know how I was feeling or deal with it. So I go out there to visit my brother. He's working. And so I'm hiking around and this kind of thing.

Jacob Armstrong 34:36

But eventually, I have these times where my older brother, what you were just talking about Chris, where I'm able to say to him, somebody who knows me, who I don't have to get the words right, of just like how terrible I was doing, you know, cried. And being with him was the first part of my breaking open, you know. We were out. We were in this kayak and fishing, and it started raining real hard. And he's like, we got to get back to the--it was kind of a rare desert rain--we got to get back to the truck. And so we're kind of laughing, you know, we're getting soaked. And I just start crying. My older brother, he's behind me, I don't know if he knows, but like, there was something in that moment of like, I have a person who's with me in this pain. I ran away. I don't know how to deal with this.

Jacob Armstrong 36:26

And that was the moment, being with somebody else. It wasn't a Bible study. I don't know if Andy, my brother, even even brought that up, but being with him and that connection. And so thank you for bringing that up. I think that's the way, that's the path of getting through these walls that we encounter in our lives.

Chris McAlilly 36:53

And I think all pain, suffering, you know, all these things they isolate, and you know, you end up feeling like there's nothing that I can do to get out of this, and I'm the only person. Like, nobody would understand, couldn't even articulate it if I was around anybody else, etc. And that, I know how that feels, man. It's a difficult place to be. And I think there's, I don't know, there can be a... I don't know. There can be a lot of freedom that can come from just giving voice to just another single individual.

Chris McAlilly 37:37

And I also think that one of the things that can happen when you get into those hard places that either you run away, or you can numb out or you can self medicate or whatever. There are a lot of different paths that are available for people that are really struggling, perhaps trying to kind of navigate a hard moment. What would you say to them today? Somebody's listening and trying to think like, what's the first step for me? What would you say, Jacob?

Jacob Armstrong 38:10

Yeah, I would. The first part is just an encouragement, just to begin to believe that there's something good coming. That's the nature of God. He's a redemptive God. And I would say that, you know, even to people who haven't experienced that or feeling close to God, it's like, we have a part to play, and that is to hope. I think that's the word, you know, the Christian hope is that. Because some people, Chris, are really in a situation. It's really difficult, you know. There wouldn't be a lot of good that you could grab on to. But I do think you can grab a hold of hope. That happens best in community.

Jacob Armstrong 38:50

Or just... Talking about church this Sunday, it's like there's a principle. If there's just one, there's just one person who's with you. And ultimately, the one is Jesus, you know. He's given us this invitation to remain in him and to abide in him. So that's not a real practical word. That's what came to my heart is just like, a word of hope, that there's a redemptive moment coming.

Jacob Armstrong 39:15

So to go full circle on this story of Daniel who I lost. He died on February the 23rd, 2003. And then a year to the day later, February the 23rd, 2004, my first daughter, Mary was born. She's a freshman in college now. As I'm literally holding Mary and realizing that it's to the day, you know. And I was still... Like, it didn't replace. It's not like one life replaced the next by any means, or even erase the suffering. I'm here like 20 or 19 years later, still talking about it all the time, you know. But there was something about that moment that I was like, it was a "God's not done moment" for me. And I believe that God is setting those up for everybody.

Jacob Armstrong 40:04

So if I was talking to somebody right now I would ask them to hope. I often tell my church folks when I'm praying with them, and I was like, we're praying this now, but I want to pray again with you on the other side. We're gonna have... Let's try to imagine being in this same spot in this corner of the sanctuary, or out in the lobby, where we gather again. So that's Christian hope, right? All because of Jesus. All because of resurrection.

Chris McAlilly 40:32

I remember hearing one of my mentors tell a story about-- this is a pastor, as well--tell a story about a woman who had lost her husband. Basically, you know, the story was, the woman came in to visit and you know, they were going to work through the what the service was going to look like. And he said, "do you have any scriptures in mind?" And, you know, she had a scripture or two. And then he said, "would you like, any songs?" And she said, "Oh, no, I can't. I just can't even imagine singing." You know, like, why would you sing in a moment like this.

Chris McAlilly 41:10
He was like, well, you know, singing can be good.

Chris McAlilly 41:13

You know, maybe we could do just one or two. And, basically months pass. She agreed to it, and they sang. And it was, you know, just core--"Great Is Thy Faithfulness," or just basic gospel, just kind of deep, deep solid hymns of the church that gave voice to God's faithfulness. And she, months later, came back and basically just said, I just didn't even have the faith to sing in the wake of what I lost. And I couldn't sing that day, but you know, the church sang for me, and held on to the joy and hope of the Gospel, even when I couldn't really hold on to it for myself. I just think that that's...

Chris McAlilly 41:13

Yeah, I liked that you put the emphasis on Christ, because it can, for certain people, the church has burned them, or their family has burned them, or their friends have burned them. And they may, you can get to a place where you feel like there's not another soul in the world that understands what it is that you're going through. And I think that the faith that I hear you preach about, Jacob, and one that, I want, I would hope that someone listening would grab on to is that. It's when everybody else has let you down, you know, we believe in a God who has come to us in the midst of that, and his name is Jesus. And Jesus is available to you and can meet you in the place of deep brokenness and pain and help you find your way out of that.

Jacob Armstrong 41:13 Yeah.

Jacob Armstrong 42:52

Yeah, that's my experience. It's funny that the day that I was supposed to turn in the manuscript for this book, so none of this is in the book, I had a major health event that I know you know about, Chris, where I had, just out of nowhere, I had a seizure. I was unconscious for eight minutes. And my life changed, has been changed since that moment. I was out of work for a few months, and what I experienced in that time, so I wrote a book called "Breaking Open," but I really broke the most after I had written it. I had a season where I had lots of things taken away from me, even with my brain waking up. I couldn't read, I couldn't see, couldn't drink coffee. Almost all the things that were dear to me, were stripped away. And what I found in that kind of suffering, and I'll just be honest, like, I have the best family and best support system, but there's a part of suffering, especially in a physical way over a chronic kind of time period, that you feel really alone.

Jacob Armstrong 43:57

And it was having everything pulled away that I encountered Jesus like I'd never encountered, where I just had to not be able to do a whole lot and just be present with Jesus. He never leaves. You know, I just want to, I don't know, to share that to folks who might be listening, that that that part's true that he'll never, ever leave. And so if you're suffering--and we all will suffer, all will suffer in some way all the time, I think--those are close communion times with Jesus. And that's why on the other side of it, it's so good, because you've developed this abiding nature with the one who's never going to leave.

Chris McAlilly 44:43

Well, I think that's a good place to put it down. The book is called "Breaking Open." Jacob, thanks so much for for being with us. If folks are interested in trying to find more information out about the book, where would you point them? What's the best place to go?

Jacob Armstrong 45:01

Yeah, simple. I mean, you know, any place you buy books. You can get it on Amazon. It's probably an easy place. There is breakingopenbook.com that has some extra stuff and devotionals and that kind of thing. Love for you to check it out.

Chris McAlilly 45:15
Yeah, man. Well, thanks for your time. Really appreciate you being on the podcast. And it's great to visit with you, brother.

Jacob Armstrong 45:21 Thank you. Loved it! Take care.

Eddie Rester 45:23
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Chris McAlilly 45:31

If you would like to support this work financially or if you have an idea for a future guest, you can go to theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]