In this episode Gina has a conversation with Melissa Chimento about processing grief with God, and doing ministry outside the four walls of the church. It all starts with knowing God’s character, coming to Him, being still, being willing to listen, and then obeying His voice. Melissa talks about her journey with processing her mother’s death, and then the radical journey that Jesus has brought her on to bring heaven to earth in day to day life and in her business.
Read the blog below to catch the highlights, or click the play button below to hear the whole episode:
The Backstory
Melissa:
My mother and father, by the grace of God I have the tremendous privilege that I’m able to say that they were godly and they loved God and they loved each other. That was fabulous. We saw the goodness of God, the faithfulness of God, the power of God.
That was really stamped in me, from a really young age. One of my greatest strengths is that the Lord graced me with knowing His goodness and knowing His character. One of the most important things you need to know is who God is.
To get it at such a young age, for the battles ahead, for the things that don’t make sense, for the things that do not turn out the way you think, for the stories or the chapters in our lives that did not end the way we wanted it to, I think it’s a critically great beginning.
I had that great beginning of God being awesome, and I had the blessing of having a father that did not put obstacles in my way for believing that God was good and he was a good father.
It almost makes me want to cry, because I just got back from Mexico on our first missions trip with my husband and I, and we were with a lot of children who were rescued, and they did not have that beginning.
They did not have the beginning of a mom and dad who loved God and loved each other. They were rescued from sex trafficking. It’s a great story of redemption and hope. There were 46 of them, but I know that they represent thousands.
But when I was six, my mom at 39 years old was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she had a mastectomy. You have to think, this was a long time ago. The treatments they used and the things they did with chemotherapy and radiation back then were different than now. Now they can do laser and specific treatments.
My mom was diagnosed with cancer and the enemy kept saying to me, “Sick, diseased, and dying.” from the age of 6 until 19. My mom was in an irreversible coma when I was 17, and at 19, she died.
That’s a lot of my childhood along with a contending, believing, faith-filled church, praying. It didn’t turn out the way we thought. We were devastated. A part of my story was the Lord showing me how the enemy had mingled in lies and rehearsed the past.
The Trap of Self Pity
The word of God and the characters and the Old Testament really brought healing and perspective to me. For instance, I’m thinking of Elijah that really brought me a lot of hope. Elijah was in a place where he had, we would say, an incredible ministry day. He calls fire down from heaven, ends a three year drought, kills 450 evil prophets.
Then he ends up hiding in a cave, despairing saying, “I’m the only one left.” Self-pity enters his heart. And that’s really my story, there were elements of self pity entering my heart. “I’m alone, left. I’m no better than anybody else. I’m just like my father.” Says Elijah.
Actually that wasn’t true. He kept on rehearsing that two or three times, (1st Kings 19), where Elijah said, “I alone and left. I’m doing it all. It’s not working. They have forsaken You. I’ve done all these awesome things. It’s not working out.”
He repeats it two or three times and ends up in a cave. God calls to him. And in a way, I was in a cave, and I didn’t know it. But, if God can get you in a dialogue, He can heal your heart. “I’ll meet you at the mouth of the cave.” But Elijah still had to get up on his feet. I’m assuming he had to get up on his feet and come to the entrance of the cave and the Lord met him there. Jesus met me there and got me in a dialogue.
I would say part of my story is an extremely practical faith. What are the four steps? My reluctance, like a lot of humanity, the feeling of pain is just so bad. You’re like, “What can I do to make this go away?”
I find the steps of how to make that go away or how to heal it with the story of Elijah. The Lord calls him into conversation. He heals him. Are there some truths to Elijah’s story? Did they forsake God? Yes. Were they abandoning Him? Yes. Were they persecuting him? Yes. But was he the only one? No, there were 7,000 that had not bowed the knee.
Part of my story, in the middle of my mom being sick, diseased and dying, was the “I’m alone, nobody gets me, no one’s reaching out.” Self-pity had entered my heart, but ever so subtly. That’s why I have such a passion for people to grieve well, to grieve with the Lord. I’m thinking of the specific scriptures, Psalm 61, Psalm 73. Both of those were structural.
I want some structure to help me heal. I want to be part of the Victorious Church. I want to be part of bearing fruit for the Kingdom. I want to honor the Father by bearing much fruit. I can’t do that if I’m stuck and highly centered on a story, rehearsing the past that has some lies mingled with truth.
I have this fight in me, I want my heart whole.
I feel like the Lord carried the burden. Not to sound too spiritual, but I feel that He really loves and protects the children. I believe that I didn’t feel the full weight of it. Out of His grace and mercy, He was sustaining me in some way.
But I even saw that flip to my Mexican missions trip with the children that we were with. They had so much joy, so much redemption, so much delight. They were connecting so well with me and with everyone else.
God’s Presence is The Safest Place to Grieve
Gina:
The pursuit of wholeness and healing and miracles and all that stuff, is good, but it can go to the point of there’s no permission to grieve, there’s no permission for loss, there’s no permission for sadness. That’s such a disservice to us, because Jesus grieved, Jesus suffered. He says that we are going to suffer and He promises to be with us.
But there is something about the process of grief with Jesus, the process of grief in God’s presence. That is a significant piece of the journey to healing and wholeness. And if we don’t allow ourselves that space and trust that God is the safest place to take our grief, then the very thing we’re building to protect ourselves is the very thing that’s keeping us from freedom and healing.
Melissa:
I totally agree. I feel as if we have truncated ourselves and not talking about emotions, honoring them well and really ineffectively not loving ourselves well. Sad, angry, hurtful, confused, doubting, if we’re scared of those words and those emotions, we’re not going to be whole.
There’s not going to be a wellspring of life. How can I guard my heart with all diligence for from it flow the springs of life, If I don’t express those things in the presence of the Lord and get healing from the Lord.
I believe that it’s a new day, where we’re going to be honest and truthful and authentic with our true selves and our true stories. In that we get free. In that others get free. To heal, we really want to be able to go to where we can be truthful, authentic, real, where we can hear the truth. There’s this passage of scripture and it’s where blind man, a beggar, yells, “Son of David, have mercy on me, have mercy on me.”
And Jesus turns around and says, “What do you want me to do? Do you want to see clearly? Do you want to see?” And I think a lot of times to put it towards where I was stuck in rehearsing my past and believing some lies, “You’re alone. You’re missing out.” Those are the two main things.
The Lord was like, “Do you want to see clearly? Do you want truth in your innermost being? The truth will set you free.“
When that process did happen, and I can share with you what I’ve done in terms of processing, then I was able to have healing. But if one of our goals is that we believe that God is going to bless authentic family and authentic community, if I’m not authentic with myself, how can I add anything to you? Being real with your pain, telling your truth story but not getting stuck.
Gina:
That can be a fine line, because it’s easy for our trauma to become our identity rather than a testimony of redemption.
I like what you were saying, “Do you want to see? Do you want to see clearly?” And part of that seeing is seeing the redemptive work of God in the midst of brokenness and pain, that all things do work together for our good and for His glory.
Melissa:
Let me ask you, don’t you think we’re not going to go to God, if we don’t know that He’s deeply moved by compassion?
Gina:
Absolutely, that’s probably the biggest lie that the Church, sons and daughters believe. When you don’t believe that God is good, you don’t believe He’s a safe place.
If you look at David and Saul, David is called a man after God’s own heart. Saul fell on his sword and killed himself. But these two men were both chosen, anointed, called by God, they knew His Word, they had relationship with Him. They both had the Holy Spirit.
But what is the difference? When David messed up, he knew the character of the Father and knew He was the safest place to go. To that repentance was an invitation back to restoration.
Saul didn’t know that, or believe that. When he fell, he isolated, he pulled away, he got more distant. All those lies rooted. There’s that difference, that understanding of the love of the Father and this misunderstanding of the love of the Father.
Melissa:
If we know Jesus has a heart of compassion towards the weary, the wanderer, the helpless, we have a High Priest who sympathizes and has compassion with us. Then what do I do? I’ll choose one issue, I have this thing that I say, “Don’t stuff it, grieve it.” Really any strong emotion. A lot of times what I find when I’m speaking with people and getting to know their life and their story, they’ll say, “I’ve tried to forgive and forgive and forgive. And it’s not working.”
And I’ll just say, “Have you ever been healed of that pain?” And generally tears follow cause they’ve actually never been healed of that pain. They’ve never actually grieved what was lost and what was wrong. If Jesus can heal the pain and show you where He was and show the truth of who He was, that is very personal.
8 Steps to Heal from Pain
- I pray a simple prayer and I just say, “Father, I give you permission to teach me how to grieve and take me through the grieving process. I just say thank you that I know that You comfort those who morn.” I just start there.
- I choose one issue at a time and I just fully acknowledge my pain and suffering. I just communicate it to Him freely. I journal it out.
- I write a letter to God, “Dear God, this is how I feel and this is how I wanted it to go. This is what I thought was going to happen. This happened and that happened. Then this didn’t happen the way I thought. If I had it all my way, it would’ve looked like this… Write it out like you are having a conversation.
- Then what I do is I write down the ways I’ve tried to deal with the pain on my own. The Bible says He’s going to wipe away every tear from your eyes and there’s no longer going to be mourning. That’s in the book of Revelation. I literally write down the ways I’ve tried to deal with it.
- Next I quiet myself, fix my eyes on Jesus, and do the most resisted activity on the planet, which is, to be still.
- Choose to believe that the Holy Spirit is a river. If you’ve received faith in Christ, He has a river flowing out of you and honoring the flow of the Holy Spirit and allowing the Holy Spirit to do what only He can do.
- If you really believe that, then you can say, “Holy Spirit write through me. What do you want to say to me?”
- Then the last thing I do is I write a letter to myself and I let Him speak to me about how He wants me to take me through the process. I continue talking to God about my pain. I seek His help until I receive His instruction. Then when He speaks I obey. You really have to be willing to follow through however He directs you. And that’s really it.
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