Seen: Before you change anything, know this

Part of Walking the GoHealth Way blog series

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Things will be better when… 

…I lose weight. 
…I get the job. 
…the roof is fixed. 
…I have more money. 
…the children are older. 
…my mental health improves. 

There is nothing wrong with wanting these things. Some of them really would make life better. 

But something happens when ‘when’ becomes a condition for our wellbeing. We begin to postpone life until some future condition is met.  And the danger is that ‘when’ becomes a condition for permission to live and the present is perpetually experienced as an inadequate waiting room.  

This is not to say we all long for things – especially when we are in pain or dealing with loss or uncertainty. A legitimate desire for things to change is vital. We don’t have to pretend that suffering is good.  

And it is not to say that we should abandon the future or the place of hope. The critique isn’t “don’t hope for the future”. Christianity is profoundly future-oriented. The problem is when future hope becomes present rejection – when the promised kingdom to come causes us to not see the kingdom already among us. 

Because our present reality is this: we are already the beloved of God. Not when we loose the weight, or get the job, or sort out the finances. But right now.  

This is not some idealised state, nor is it blind optimism. But beloved right now within whatever we are going through – while we are struggling with our mental health, God is here and love us. While we sit in doubt and loss and uncertainty, God is with us.  

In it all, we are seen and loved, just as we are.  

It might sound easy, but often, this is actually hard to hear, and live into. We get stuck in ‘when-ness’ thinking, or believing we are not good enough. And underneath much of this is the power of shame to shape our everyday experience of the world.  

Shame can arise when we believe that something about us makes us fundamentally flawed, inadequate, unworthy or unacceptable. 

It can arise from criticism, rejection, humiliation, comparison, failure, abuse, neglect, or repeatedly being made to feel that we don’t measure up. Often, especially in childhood, experiences that originally come from outside us become an internal voice: “I’m not good enough.” “I’m too much.” “I’m not lovable.” “If people really knew me, they wouldn’t accept me.” 

Shame is therefore different from guilt; where guilt is: “I did something wrong.”, shame is: “There is something wrong with me.”  

And because shame is painful, we often respond by hiding, withdrawing, defending ourselves, striving, controlling or trying to change ourselves. 

This is where it connects with “things will be better when…”: shame can make us believe that acceptance and worth are always conditional:  “I’ll be okay when I lose weight, succeed, get my life together, become more spiritual, stop making mistakes… “

The problem is that the goalpost keeps moving. We spend our lives trying to become acceptable, rather than discovering that we already belong. 

The Christian conviction is that we are beloved as we are now, and that our dignity precedes all – belovedness before achievement, and, even, belovededness despite what we think about ourselves.  

This conviction is at the heart of the healing ministry that Jesus demonstrated.  

When he performed miracles, it was not as a Galilean superhero shooting out rays of healing power. He walked, he stopped, he saw – and often he asked – what is it that you want? He was curious about the person in front of him, and saw beyond the surface illness, into their true desire. And underneath so many of these encounters is a desire to be free, to be seen, and to belong. 

In the healing ministry of Jesus, people were cured. The sickness that was cured was unique to each person, but the stigma and shame that each suffered was universal – whether it was the woman with the hemorrhages, or the Geresene demoniac, or the paralytic by the side of the pool, they were all a pariah to their community and unable to fully participate in life. Jesus healed them, but this was never just a surface level sure. Yes, the blood was stopped, reason returned and a man could walk, but the healings meant more. Through their interaction with Jesus their stigma and shame that crippled their everyday experience was lifted. They could return to life again, because they had been reconciled with God, who saw them, knew them and loved them.  

At GoHealth, we resource and support individuals and church communities to offer this healing ministry – deep holistic flourishing. We offer carefully designed and theological rich resources to offer healing and hope, within a world blessed with modern medicine. We offer community and belonging as we walk through the world as it is, but also as a people who believe in the power of the resurrection.  

A central part of this holistic and theological approach to healing and flourishing is how we handle prayer and worship in our spiritual lives and in our church communities. If we are to move towards deepening our sense of our belovedness, then we need prayer and worship that helps us believe that we don’t have to wait until we are ‘fixed’ to be beloved, until suffering has ended to participate in healing, that our anxiety is not a sign that we need to be ‘fixed’, but a sign that we need to be loved more, by ourselves and to see more clearly how we are loved by God.  

There may be things we need to change. There may be things we desperately hope will change. We can work for those things, pray for them, seek help for them and hope for them. 

But we don’t have to make our belonging conditional upon them. 

Because we are already here. 

Already seen. 

Already held. 

Already beloved. 

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Your next step

• Explore how The GoHealth Community gathers and prays
• Listen to a podcast on healing and worship
• Explore our online courses

Go to the next blog in The GoHealth Way series

Go deeper into The GoHealth Way with our reflective online course

The GoHealth Way is our shared way of living, leading and working for healing, hope and belonging. It grows from a simple conviction: we are not meant to heal alone. We become more attentive to ourselves, to one another, to our communities and to the world around us – and, in doing so, we can join in with what God is already doing.

This course introduces the vision, values, theology and practices that shape the GoHealth Way. It explores our story and history, the change we long to see in the world, and what it means to nurture flourishing and reduce suffering. It also recognises that this way of living can be costly, so we explore the importance of rest, renewal, community and the things that bring us alive.

This isn’t simply a course to complete. It is an invitation to a way of life we are learning together.

Along the way, you’ll be invited to reflect on your own life, the difference you want to make in the world, and whether you might want to join us in building a movement of healing, hope and belonging.

What you’ll explore

• The story and vision of GoHealth
• Our theology of Christian health and healing
• Belonging and why it matters for healing
• The values and principles that shape our work
• What it means to be a healing presence
• Our approach to health, wellbeing and flourishing
• Our history and the impact we are seeking to make
• How you can join in