Today's Heartlift with Janell
Sometimes the story we tell ourselves is not really true. Sometimes the story others tell about us is not really true. On "Today's Heartlift with Janell," Author, Trauma-informed, board-certified marriage and family specialist, and Professional Heartlifter, Janell Rardon, opens conversations about how emotional health and mental fitness effects absolutely every area of our lives. When we possess and practice healthy, strong, resilient emotional health practices, life is so much better. Read Janell's newest book, "Stronger Every Day: 9 Tools for an Emotionally Healthy You."
Today's Heartlift with Janell
311. Where Are You, God? with Aubrey Sampson
As we enter the 40-day season of Lent, author and pastor Aubrey Sampson helps us uncover the spiritual wisdom and "strange gifts" that often hide inside grief. In her new book, "What We Find in the Dark: Loss, Hope, and God's Presence in Grief," Aubrey shares how losing her best friend of twenty years sent her into a dark night of the soul. She shares, "Sometimes the dark nights of life and faith have strange gifts. Conversely, we find ourselves free from the superficial in our lives. We discover peace and the assurance that we are loved. And we experience a deeper, more honest relationship with the God we found in the dark."
Visit Aubrey's website and pre-order her new book, Aubrey Sampson.
Download Aubrey's "Five Questions to Ask When You Wonder if God is Still There."
Listen to Aubrey's podcast, "Nothing is Wasted."
Learn More About The Lent Collection with Emily P. Freeman
Begin Your Heartlifter's Journey:
- Visit and subscribe to Heartlift Central on Substack. This is our new online coaching center and meeting place for Heartlifters worldwide.
- Download the "Overcoming Hurtful Words" Study Guide PDF: BECOMING EMOTIONALLY HEALTHY
- Meet me on Instagram: @janellrardon
- Leave a review and rate the podcast: WRITE A REVIEW
- Learn more about my books and work: Janell Rardon
- Make a tax-deductible donation through Heartlift International
A reading from what we Find in the Dark Loss, hope and God's Presence in Grief. Not one of us is exempt from loss. We lose what we expected, what we thought we believed, our sense of security or identity. We lose friendships. We lose people we love. What do we do with the disruption, disorientation and devastation of loss? How do we survive unpredictable grief, ongoing suffering and the questions about God that happen in the dark nights of our lives? In what we Find in the Dark, author and pastor Aubrey Sampson, our guest today, writes through the illness and death of her best friend, offering raw, real and fought for spiritual wisdom and practical insights for loss, grief and doubt. Aubrey comes to us to help us locate ourselves on the journey of loss, but gives honesty, hope and direction for what's ahead. None of us want to be in seasons of sorrow, but sometimes the dark nights of life and faith have strange gifts. On the other side, we find ourselves free from the superficial in our lives, we discover peace and the assurance that we are very loved, and we experience a deeper, more honest relationship with the God we found in the dark. Until that time comes, you do not need to journey alone. Heartlifter, learn to walk through the darkness while holding on to hope. On to Hope. Aubrey Sampson co-planted and serves as a teaching pastor at Renewal Church, a multi-ethnic congregation in Chicagoland. She also speaks regularly at churches and conferences around the country. She's an award-nominated author, a coach with Propel Women Cohorts and the co-host of the Nothing is Wasted podcast. She's the author of several books and is passionate about helping hurting Christians find God's presence in their pain. She and her husband Kevin and their three hilarious sons live, minister and play in the Chicagoland area and play in the Chicagoland area.
Speaker 1:I thought my conversation with Aubrey would be the perfect way to begin our Lenten experience. Lent is a time in the church calendar where in the past, in the ancient culture, they would put sackcloth and ashes on and they would spend 40 days in prayer and fasting as they awaited the great Easter aria that was to come. We've gotten a bit away from that here in our modern culture, but I like to think of a time like Lent as just a time to really set apart with intention, some beautiful time of stillness, silence and solitude, to be in the presence of God, to examine the heart and perhaps to make some transformative changes in our life so that, when Easter does arise upon us, we can then move forward out of this 40 days with a renewed vigor for the faith journey. When I was a child, I gave up candy and my great reward was Easter morning, when I probably ate myself to death in sugar. But as an adult, I see Lent, the Lenten season, these 40 days, as a time of, as I said, intentional introspection. Things to you like.
Speaker 1:Maybe this is a season where you really look at a negative narrative in your life, or a coping mechanism, a defense mechanism in your life, like this year 2025, I have set this time aside to consider personalization, which is a defense mechanism that I learned very early in life, where I just take everything personal. Obviously, it is my fault if something is wrong in a relationship, if something's not going right. I have sinned, I have fallen short? Yes, that's true, but I think I just picked up that narrative that if I was good, a good girl, and I got straight A's and really if I won Miss America, my dad would stop drinking, my mother would stop worrying and they would be happy and everyone would be happy. I don't know where I picked up that responsibility. It's just part of my DNA to be over-caring, and so it makes sense to me today. I've had to make meaning with it. I've had to dwell in that time of my childhood and make some sense and meaning out of it, which is what we do with the Heart Lift Method. But I thought today that Aubrey's conversation would help you to know that there are strange gifts in the dark nights of the soul, and we could even expand that conversation to perhaps a dark time in history. We have so much going on in the world and because we have access to news and media 24-7, we are pummeled pummeled, sometimes with one side of the story, sometimes with the truth, sometimes we are left to our own perception and that can really lead to some deception. If you need some ideas for how to navigate your 40 days, I will put those in the show notes.
Speaker 1:Our guest today, aubrey, has a wonderful, wonderful resource on her website. You just have to put in your email five questions to ask when you wonder if God is still there. I think it's a beautiful resource for Lent. I am going to be doing a beautiful Lenten collection by one of my favorite authors, emily P Freeman, called the Lenten Collection. I will put that in the show notes. Now I don't get any kickbacks from this. These are just things that I love, and you can also look at JanelleRiordancom.
Speaker 1:I will have a beautiful new resource it's not there yet for you based on chapter one in a new book that I'm in, healthy Habits for the Home, rooted in Rhythms. It is a Hope Books collaboration and I am so proud of this chapter. I am loving loving being involved in this collaboration and I will put the link to that free it's called a lead magnet free resource on my website. But right now we're going to get into this incredibly powerful, lovely conversation with Aubrey Sampson. Aubrey, aubrey, aubrey, we are so thankful to have you here. Thank you for bringing us your work, your heart work, because in this newest book, what we Find in the Dark, lost Hope and God's Presence in Grief, is definitely what I think maybe 99.9% of us all need. There's probably a 1%. That's in a joy season.
Speaker 1:I don't know Right, they're fine, you're good. I've said it one time or another in our lives and I've been walking this faith journey for 40, over 40 years now. There have been many dark nights of the soul. So, first and foremost, I do want to know why you wrote this book. Why now? Because you have several others that I'd love to dive into, but we're going to focus primarily on this beautiful book that is coming into the world on my mother's birthday, april 8th, and so happy birthday, Mama in Heaven. And what? Why now? Why now? Well, first of all, janelle, thank in Heaven. Yeah. And what? Why now? Why now?
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, Janelle, thank you for having me. I feel like I already love you and you and I can talk for hours, so try to keep it concise for your listeners, but I'm very honored to be here.
Speaker 1:So thank you, thank you for what you do and thank you for having me Very kind.
Speaker 2:I wrote this book out of a dark season. I wrote this book out of a dark season. My very best friend of over 25 years, the girl that I grew up with essentially I mean we came of age together talked on the phone or on text or on voice text every day for 25 years. I mean there was not a day we did not talk.
Speaker 1:What was her name?
Speaker 2:Jen, jen, yeah, jen, with two N's. Jen died of breast cancer on December 21st two years ago. So young, so young, leaving three sons behind. We both have raised three sons together.
Speaker 1:I just got chills. She has yes, yeah, oh um, so, Janelle, I have.
Speaker 2:I have been through loss before and in fact, I am in a season of loss right now. My dad actually died on the same day, December 21st.
Speaker 1:Yes, just a few months ago, I mean.
Speaker 2:No, yes, just a few months ago. I mean, it will be a few months when this podcast come out, right?
Speaker 1:2024, december 21st. Yes, yes. The same day Aubrey. That is not coincidental.
Speaker 2:That is like liminal space. That's Janelle. I feel like there is the grief over my best friend, there is the grief over my father, and then there is this third thing that had happened on the same day that I don't know what to do with. So I'm just sort of going okay, god, that's over here for now. We'll mess around with that. Later we will. I've got some questions.
Speaker 1:I've got some questions.
Speaker 2:I really like that I have got some questions for you God, and I'm going to get in the closet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, silent space with three boys, 18, 16, and 13, which I remember those ages, and there was no quiet space. There's no quiet space.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:That is a very busy season of parenting. It definitely is.
Speaker 2:So I wrote this book. It is not my first loss. I have written about other losses and grief before, different types of losses as well, not just death.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But this was the first time for me, as a Christian of 35 years, when God was not drawing near with his presence, and so I felt no comfort, I felt no sense of the spirit with me and no sense of God speaking to me when I needed God most. Oh, boy of God speaking to me when I needed God most.
Speaker 2:It was the most difficult grief I have ever walked through. It was the lowest season I have ever been in and I did not know what to do with that question at 35 years of being a Christian and not having it be beautiful and wonderful and lovely all the time. I've been through loss before, but this was the first time when I was like God, where are you? No, where are you? And that, of course, sends you on quite a journey of like okay, what is faith when I can't feel God?
Speaker 2:okay, what is faith when I can't feel God. Where is God when all I sense is absence? Is God doing something in the absence? And why? Because it feels very cruel and so, honestly, this book for me was like a wrestling, like I got to get through this somehow. I have to make sense of it somehow, or else I'm going to like be done Like I can't make it through and you're a pastor.
Speaker 1:Let's add that to the mix. I am a pastor.
Speaker 2:So you have a congregation.
Speaker 1:depending on you to figure it out, I would think yeah, yes, children. Wondering why is so with that mix? I mean, you're married, you're parenting 35 years. Were you two when you accepted Christ you?
Speaker 2:look so young. I so appreciate you saying that. Thank you so much, that's so true. I was 11 years old when I came to Christ, so that tells you that I am almost 47. Wow. I like to still say I'm closer to 45 than 50.
Speaker 1:Yes, you are, but we're getting there, we're getting there.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, so young, a young, young thing still, you know. Yeah, and what did that look like then? Yeah, did that look like I'm getting in bed, because that's where I probably will go later this afternoon myself, because I expressed to you before we started. I feel like I am in a very dark night of the soul again, and the question is where are you, god? I know you're there, I've been here before, but why was that time different? And what did that look like physically? Did you just high function through it?
Speaker 2:So it's really interesting I did, I achieved and moved and never stopped and did not allow myself to pause or rest or be still All the things you actually should do in dark nights of the soul.
Speaker 2:I went opposite. Nope, I got errands to run, I got goals to accomplish, I got people to tend to, I got commitments to say yes to and I just it's actually like two. You know, it's been two years since I lost Jen and I do feel like I have come out of that dark night season. I'm very thankful for that.
Speaker 2:But as I have reflected back on Aubrey in the dark night, I actually feel so much compassion for her that she could not give herself permission to just be like. I think it was avoiding the pain. I was so unsure of what to do. I'm. It was like it was like groping, like I am groping for something and I never just let myself go.
Speaker 2:okay, maybe God's doing something. I'm going to let go. I am going to rest, I am going to stay in bed. I just didn't give myself permission to do that. It's interesting now, being in my grief with my dad. I am letting myself stay in bed. I have canceled a lot of things.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'm like, no, we're not doing that again. That was not kind to myself and so now. I'm giving myself permission to rest, but yeah, you'd think, in a dark night of the soul you're going to be, can't get out of bed under the covers, lights out, curtains closed, depression Right, but that was not my experience of myself in the dark night, anyway, you type baited. Oh yeah, I'm going to win this thing. I will win the dark night of the soul, oh my gosh, I do know it sounds extremely familiar sadly.
Speaker 2:Yes, you know that well, I know it very well. Yes, I do. I'm sorry, but this time.
Speaker 1:I don't Like you, I don't know. Okay, let's just explain for everyone, because, man, I am just relating and needing to stay focused. Because what is the dark night of the soul? John, get the book, my dear heart lifters. I have no doubt that you will, because if you aren't in a dark night of the soul, for sure there are those around you who are. So what is a dark night of the soul? What is that?
Speaker 2:It's such a good question because we tend to use it incorrectly. In our current vernacular we use it to simply describe hard times, even depression, spiritual doubt, things like that, but the dark night. According to St John of the Cross and his mentor, teresa of Avila, who they actually coined the phrase, it is a season of obscurity, meaning it is a season when you cannot see sense or understand what God is up to. And the I'm going to butcher the Spanish, but the actual original translation in Spanish is La Noche Oscura, and that's a dark, a night of obscurity, and it's it's like the night. The season you're in becomes so opaque that you just have no sense of God's presence, of what God is doing, where God is leading you, and there's no answers in it. And that's what's very, very, very difficult. But what's interesting is, anecdotally, and even in scripture, christians have experienced seasons like that where, for some mysterious reason, god pulls back not his presence but a sense of his presence oh, that's good, stop, we're yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're on a roll, you're preaching and I love it. So it's not a his presence is gone, it's a lack of feeling his presence. That's it. Is that it Because he's always present?
Speaker 2:Scripture says he never leaves us nor forsakes us. So if we're going to believe that that's true, then we have to believe it's not his actual presence that he has removed from us, but there's some reason. He is removing a felt sense of his presence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2:Because he's doing something in it and unfortunately I mean Teresa and John thought it was loving, Like they would call the dark night of the soul, this loving thing. God was doing. I never experienced it as loving until looking back going oh. I see what you were doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because on some level, go ahead. No, no, no, I don't want to stop you.
Speaker 2:Well, I think part of what God is doing is helping us realize actually our faith isn't a feeling.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, say it again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know it's hard. You don't even want to say it.
Speaker 2:No but it's like we. I think what we end up doing is worshiping God for, like the quote feeling, we think we get from the spirit and again, you know, the spirit does bring us comfort and help and counsel, like things that were promised, and yet what we can do is actually make that quote feeling an idol or a God, instead of worshiping God himself, jesus himself, the spirit, and so part of what's happening in that pulling back is God is actually drawing us closer to understand his presence in a new way and understand that faith is more than just a feeling.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, sitting with that for a minute. Okay, so he is present. And one of the things that you talk about in what we find in the dark is this concept of you had fought for spiritual wisdom, fought for, and I was like, yes, tell me, where were you? How did that come to you? What does that mean, to have a fought for spiritual wisdom?
Speaker 2:Don't you appreciate people who have, like you and I we appreciate ourselves People who have, like you've, been through a dark night, or a season of loss, or a real, real desert season, and yet you've watched them stay faithful. Not perfect, never perfect Not always praising, not always happy, not always, you know, claiming victory or whatever, but still leaning into Jesus.
Speaker 1:I love the concept of leaning in. As my heartlifters know, I talk about lean in, so we're going to lean in. Yeah, we do, it's a lean in moment let's talk about, let's lean in here, heartlifters. Here's our lean in moment. So this fought for spiritual wisdom. You've already said it earlier this book is about a wrestling right, a groping. You've used those words, those verbs, very active groping.
Speaker 2:I really resonated with that Like I'm groping and there's nothing that you feel tangibly.
Speaker 1:It's like okay, I want a God with skin on, because I can't seem to, but that's where we press in. If correct me if I'm wrong, what I hear you saying is that is that liminal space. We talk about that a lot here on this podcast. Because liminal space is that space between you, know, and earth where, yeah, I feel like a dark night of the soul happens yes and so what do we do? How did you fight for it?
Speaker 2:yeah, well you. You've told us, but well, yeah, I mean it's a strange, like kind of counterintuitive or even um, like two seemingly opposing things at the same time, right like yeah in one sense, in a dark night of the soul, you have to do the things you don't actually quote. Do like you, like the spiritual disciplines you lean into are like rest, silence oh sabbath, you know, pass it like your pat.
Speaker 2:You become passive in your, in your spiritual practices, receiving instead of doing, doing, doing. And yet this is where it can become a little bit of a contradictory thing, although you know how the liminal tension. Both things are true at the same time, yeah it's not binary, it's both.
Speaker 1:That's both.
Speaker 2:That's it Correct, that's right, that's right and at the same time, in a dark night of the soul like you, have to contend for your faith, and I mean ask God all the ugly questions.
Speaker 1:I mean.
Speaker 2:I was lamenting like God, I feel betrayed by you. I don't think you're bigger than cancer. You have let me down. You have abandoned me. Are you even real? Am I praying to the ceiling fan? Is this whole thing fake? Is my life and ministry a joke? Like I went dark, oh, okay, but I think that's what it means. It's to be like, okay, god, I'm, I'm, I'm scorching the earth here, but in that, that's still an act of faith, cause you're still, like you said, leaning in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you are.
Speaker 2:So it's like you're right. It's that tension between the passive spiritual practices of just rest and receiving and going okay. God, I can't control this dark night. So I'm going to let go and also I'm not going to stop groping for you in it, because I have got to find you. Like Jacob, I will not let you go.
Speaker 1:No, exactly, until you bless me. Yes, I love that. Yes, for sure. And then the woman who just crawled and crawled and groped her way. The woman, the issue of blood, you know that's that's. I really love her.
Speaker 2:I will grab your hand. I will Exactly Because.
Speaker 1:I got nothing left. I got nothing, but she did have something left and Jacob had something left, because it was that fought for. You know it's that fight that is. I'm just not going to let go until you bless me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I've really loved that. That's really speaking to my heart right now. I'm just not going to let go until you bless me. You know, and one of my things is ask God for good, ask him for good. I can't remember where that is, but it's just something that keeps in the dark night of my soul.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I'll find it Heartlifter and I'll read it to you. It's a psalm. Yes, heartlifter, it is Psalm 86, verse 17. Here it is in the NIV Give me a sign of your goodness that my enemies may see it and be put to shame, for you, lord, have helped me and comforted me. The Voice Bible as you know, one of my favorites says give me a sign so I may know your goodness rests on me.
Speaker 1:I was taught so many years not to ask for a sign. That that shows a sign in your life of immaturity. Your goodness, rest on me. And the reason the psalmist is asking that is so that the enemies of your life may see it and be put to shame. The voice says be read with shame, r-e-d, for you, god, have helped me and comforted me. So in asking for that sign of goodness resting on your life, it's also a sign that you have been helped and comforted. It's a beautiful prayer and I'm so grateful that God showed me that, grateful that God showed me that. You know he just asked me for something good. Okay, I'm going to keep asking. I will. Is it okay if I ask for good? Is it okay? Like you know, those are all those things that I have questioned God with in the dark, you know. And so you have some you write about and I love this word compelling sticky statements.
Speaker 1:Well, I am a post-it note girl and my husband and I recently in Uruguay, when I was there visiting my two grands, we didn't have any way to watch anything no TV, you know, or anything but I had my iPad and for some reason it connected and so we watched Unsung Hero, which I'm not sure you've watched. It was about the yeah, I hadn't either, and it was all the hype you know. So my husband and I watched Unsung Hero, which is about, for King and Country, their story and Rebecca St James story, and we just I couldn't pull anything up. But for some reason that movie came up and I'm like, oh, let's watch this. Well, my husband cried through the whole thing and a big part of that movie is sticky notes on the wall.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's cool.
Speaker 1:Pray and thank and it renewed my faith to ask God for good things, it's OK, ask Him for a washer and dryer, ask him for, ask him, ask, seek a knock. And so they had these sticky notes and when they would, the answer came, they would put it over into the thanks on the wall which is empty wall in their home.
Speaker 2:I love that, I know.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of like war room ish. You know the Priscilla Shire, yep, but you know, I think I tend to lose that childlike faith, I know, in the dark night of the soul and I don't feel like it's okay to ask him for good things Right.
Speaker 1:So you have these sticky statements. What is that? What are your sticky statements that helped you find the transformative power of Christ in this dark night of the soul where you're high functioning and you are knocking them out of the park? I think you wrote two books, perhaps during this high functioning grief period. I'm not really sure. I think.
Speaker 2:I'm laughing at myself, I know you very well, I, I did, I wrote hello, younger self and what we find in the dark while I'm dying inside, get out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't even think it's. How are we doing this? I just oh yeah I know, yeah.
Speaker 2:So here you are. One of the. For me, one of the things that I you know I guess you could call this a sticky statement is I kept just saying, god, show me all the ways you're coming towards me with love. Show me all the ways you're coming towards me with love. Show me all the ways you're coming towards me with love.
Speaker 1:Wow, take a moment there.
Speaker 2:I love that Slowly show me all the ways you are coming towards me with love. Wow, okay, that's really show me all the ways you're coming towards me with love, jesus. And God continues to come towards us with love. In the dark night, it's nearly impossible to see those ways, and so that's why I just that became my heart's cry.
Speaker 1:Where were you when that came? Do you remember? Were you high-functioning and on the pulpit and at the soccer games or baseball? Or you have 18-year to 16 year old, 13 year old. They're certainly involved in massive activities, I'm not sure. So do you remember the moment, where it was? It just like okay.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, it was. It was it, of course, in the quiet the rare quiet moment in the morning in my reading chair, fireplace on candle lit, as I'm journaling.
Speaker 1:Good girl, I love it.
Speaker 2:I'm journaling my where are you, god? Again and again.
Speaker 1:Good, I'm so thankful you have that practice to get it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's where the spirit of God reminded me, like God is coming towards you with lip, but right now I know it's hard to see. So you can ask, you can ask, and, and part of that then is, if you're going to ask, god, show me all the ways you're coming towards me with love is then you have to attune your soul to pay attention.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great, I love that word attune, it's very powerful. Yeah, because I'm thinking did you ever not want to sit your little self down in that reading chair? Was it a discipline?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, there was about a year when I would. Honestly, I had my Bible and my journal on my coffee table by my little chair and I would literally walk by and I would go, hey, you just stay over there, I'm not, I'm not ready for you right now.
Speaker 1:Okay, thank you. I want you to be so honest. This is so helpful Okay.
Speaker 2:What did help is I could read a you know a piece of poetry. I could read a litter liturgy. It took me about a year in my dark night to be able to read like a psalm. I started to call it inchworm Bible reading because I was like, okay, I can do one psalm, that's it.
Speaker 1:That's what I can do you said inch short Bible reading.
Speaker 2:Inchworm Inchworm.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, yeah, oh, my gosh yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and just like by inch, like okay, okay, God, I'm going to look for you, Okay, but it did. It took me a while. So, yes, it became a discipline, a habit of faith, essentially like I don't have faith, but I'm going to choose to. So here's my way of doing it I'll journal, I'll ask God my questions. It's not going to be sexy, but like I got to do something or I'm not going to make it.
Speaker 1:How did your husband during this time, your significant, beautiful husband that you co-pastor with? I'm sure that I know I just feel so bad for my husband right now, like I'm in a dark night and I'm just feeling really bad. I'm like you can't help me. There's nothing. His encouragement's falling flat. You just kept going. You just kept going.
Speaker 2:So my husband is a seven on the Enneagram.
Speaker 1:Oh fun. Okay, let's avoid, let's have a party.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're going to pretend like pain isn't happening.
Speaker 1:So it wasn't great.
Speaker 2:Three, or I am a four with a very strong three wing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I get you Two with a strong okay, oh, okay, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we know each other.
Speaker 1:When I'm not healthy, I go to three because I just want to produce ambition. So I think that is what we would call high functioning. It will get us through and, thank God, we have to have coping, we have to have defense mechanisms. They help us get through things and God is gracious. I'm hearing a million things that I'm probably going to come back and reiterate after we're done. But be kind to yourself. I'm hearing you say that. I'm hearing you say that you had a specific place in your home. That was your place to center, to ground, to the reading chair, with the fireplace and the candle.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Love that.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Symbolism and strength. There are days when you pass by that, of course, okay. So these are really practical, practical, heartfelt, hard lessons that come with the dark night of the soul, which is a time of obscurity. I've never heard it described as a period of time that lacks meaning. So I appreciate you for really bringing that truth to the table. I can't wait to read it again in your book and underline it again and try to make it real. So how do I make this real to someone who's listening, who is contending, who is putting up sticky notes, who is leaning in? I love that you talk about the W's. You know you have a beautiful resource on your site that I will link everyone to. I love it so much with the W questions. So everyone, you download that first on Aubrey's site, you'll get the link. So this person is groveling, yeah, you know, yeah. And so how do they keep contending to find a strange gift? I love that you talk about the strange gifts.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So how do they? What is a strange gift in the dark night, and how do they keep moving forward to get it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, hard questions. There are two things that come to mind, and these are likely not the local church. We have really neglected that piece of our spiritual formation. We have missed what it means biblically, historically, ecumenically to be a people of lament.
Speaker 1:Yeah, collectively right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, collectively right yeah yeah, and to lament is simply to express your grief to God. Now, lament in scripture is often poetry, it's often works of art. It's something that's repeatable. It's something where the artist or the prophet or the lamenter has taken something that is chaotic and seems senseless and meaningless and put some kind of form to it, and there's something in that that, I think, is us bearing God's image, just as God spoke, form into chaos as we learn what it is to lament and create art and express our pain to God on behalf of other people, with other people. There's something in that practice of lament that I firmly believe keeps our hearts connected to God in a dark night of the soul. So that's one thing, and then the second piece is connected we have to be in Christian community, and I know that sometimes Christian community can be that's another conversation.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes. So I wouldn't say run to your unsafe community, but find people of faith that are trustworthy, yes, and you just borrow their faith. Like when you don't have it, you borrow theirs.
Speaker 1:I love that so much.
Speaker 2:And I think some of that is. You know, reading the lamenters in scripture. Like during my dark night, I'm borrowing Jeremiah's faith. He's his people are suffering. He's suffering, he's crying out to God, and so I'm like, okay, if you can keep crying out to God, jeremiah, then I'm just going to read your words out loud. That's my prayer for today, cause.
Speaker 1:I love that, Aubrey, oh my gosh, that is. That's so well said and so wise. That's an attribute of your fought for spiritual wisdom. You know to borrow Jeremiah. That's so fresh.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know I'm going to be okay, deborah, okay.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I need to borrow some of your warrior spirit or your wisdom spirit under the palm tree. I really love that Like activate those that have gone before us, those in our cloud of witnesses, activate their faith in a season where you feel none, feel being an operative word. That's so beautiful. So a strange gift then is to borrow. Is that what you're saying? Okay, borrow, lean on, lean in collectively, find a group. Hopefully it is your safe church, hopefully it's your safe family.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Small group, I don't know People at work, just safety and security to seek that out. That's really beautiful.
Speaker 2:I love that. If you need to get a hold of JL's tent peg anger, you do that too.
Speaker 1:I love some tent anger.
Speaker 2:Please start writing about this.
Speaker 1:This is so good. This is a sermon series have you done this sermon series yet We've we've done.
Speaker 2:Uh, like you know, the women of our faith in Debra and JL, we're a big part of it.
Speaker 1:I love it. Grab the tent. If you need the tent spike, I'd love it. Get it, get that anger out Do God's. Yeah, because that was a work of God. That's so good, so, so, so, so good. Oh, my goodness, deep breath. So you can read more about lament in the louder song.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can, okay, so these books to me are companion books, if they are companion books.
Speaker 1:Okay, perfect. So starting with the louder song, and I I wrote in my journal after reading that and preparing for this, I I really help my ears. God hear the louder song. You describe that as what? The louder song? You describe that as what the louder song is what? Aubrey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I describe the louder song as I mean God's song, but really it's God's work of redemption and renewal and recreation and that sort of already not yet promise of one day making all things new one day making all wrongs right, making all things new One day, making all wrongs right. And God is writing that song now. God is singing that song now. God is inviting us to sing along with him, but we do have to tune our ears.
Speaker 1:I mean that's that same concept of contending. Yeah, attunement. Yeah, I am going to listen until you bless me.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1:That's my word for today. You have totally helped. We prayed before we started for more light and I'm going to be very, very honest that you have brought me light and just helping me have things to pray. Show me the way you know that you bring me love, Like I scribbled the end of it. So it's show me all the ways you come to me in love. Yes, yes, Show me all the ways you come to me in love. That's. I am going to be speaking and praying that all day long, probably, for until I feel, until I see the love.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes. And he will. He will come towards you. I believe that for both of us, he will for sure.
Speaker 1:Okay, so in closing, I want to go back to what you were saying about the act of creation during the dark night of the soul, when you were saying that we need to create some kind of beauty. Knit a sweater is that what I'm hearing? Knit a blanket, cultivate yourself.
Speaker 2:That's exactly it, because I understand. Not everyone is an artist.
Speaker 1:Not everyone's going to write a song, a poem a book, or two books, in the middle of their lamenting.
Speaker 2:That's not every, and that's fine. God has created us all beautifully, perfectly differently.
Speaker 1:All beautifully, perfectly differently, but that's exactly it, janelle, like what can you give for your soul's refreshment?
Speaker 2:Yes, that's it. Because you're in a desert season, you are in a dry, wilderness season, you are in the darkness. So, you know, I think about dark nights of the soul as, like, you have to have night faith, and one of the ways that we have night faith is tending to our soul's needs and I actually think that's a gift. That's one of those strange gifts in the dark night is suddenly where we have this permission to like oh, what do I need? What?
Speaker 2:do I want, what is my soul longing for? And that might be an art class. I started doing those, you know, dumb paint and sip classes. I'm a terrible painter but that gave me life. It's just fun, it's creative.
Speaker 1:And there's people in the room laughing. Yes, yes, and I was Cookie decorating Anything.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, anything being with somebody Going on a walk, going on a hike, gardening, brewing a beautiful pot of tea.
Speaker 1:I was in, like in Uruguay, and after the Sassato they just they make a round circle of chairs and I mean they do this every Sunday or whatever. They're so family-based there and they made their cappuccinos and then they made this incredibly beautiful hibiscus tea and the teapot, all the teacups. I have pictures, I'll put them out. Yeah, I was like, why don't I do this at home? Right, right.
Speaker 1:Why don't I do this? This is part of their culture. It's just what they do. They just sit around in a circle and look at each other sip their cappuccinos and drink their tea.
Speaker 2:And just part of the rhythm I mean it's part of the rhythm. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, I love that so much. Aubrey, I just want to thank you for helping us understand the true understanding of A Dark Night of the Soul, and I know that my listeners, my beautiful friends, my heartlifters are going to want to get that book and school themselves, because I feel like loss, hope, holding loss and holding hope. We have to do at the same time. So we are living in a time where people need that, where we need that. Thank you for encouraging my soul and helping me navigate a dark night of the soul. Many blessings to you.
Speaker 2:You too. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:You're so welcome. May you be blessed in every way through this season, this new season, that you're in lamenting and grieving over your dad, it's a big deal, heartlifters. You can find Aubrey at Aubrey S O Ncom or on social media at A? U BS A M P. At A? U B S A M P. I encourage you to download that incredible, beautiful resource. She has five questions to ask. When you wonder if God is still there.
Speaker 1:Be sure to subscribe to Heart Lift Central over on Substack. All you have to do is put at Heart Lift Central in your browser and you will find your way there. Or check the show notes. I will be doing a private extended teaching on the dark night of the soul over on Substack this Friday. So be sure, be sure to connect to that incredible resource for your faith journey. And if you would be so kind, yes, please leave a review of the podcast wherever you listen Apple, Spotify, google Play not sure where you listen, but anywhere you do listen, you can leave a review. And be sure to share this message with your friends so they can have all these resources as well to help them on their faith journey. Their faith journey. And Heartlifter remember you, my friend have value, worth and dignity Until next time.
