As you listen to this episode today, you can replace Jane’s name with yours. Jane could really be any one of us and the battle she fights is ours too. Simply insert the thing that you fear most in place of what she battled and this message will apply to, dare I say everyone. We’ve all experienced painful, helpless situations where we couldn’t lift our hand to change our circumstance. We’ve all struggled with God through prayer and pain. What does God offer us when what we’re praying for we never see come to fruition?
I’ve been in this place of contemplation with God. I often grab ahold of something complicated, or at least complicated to me, and begin to talk with God about it. Sometimes He gives me understanding, discernment right away but other times He unfolds things as I talk with Him over a period of time.
Allow me to lay some groundwork for this topic, albeit common knowledge but kindly be patient with me as I include any new listeners. This podcast is rooted in discovering the various ways that we personally experience God’s presence in our pain. I find great encouragement to hear the different testimonies of God’s goodness despite the painful places of this life. You could say that I embrace having difficult conversations and taking a closer look at the suffering in this life with the goal of finding God’s presence in the midst.
Jesus entered into our pain way before we ever knew anything about sin and the resulting consequences and that was when He was crucified on the cross. He physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually experienced something He was never guilty of.
He felt every degree of shame, guilt, confusion, disappointment, trauma, sickness, rejection, abandonment. All of the things that come from sin and rebellion and that create fear and terror in our hearts. He took all of those things with Him, driving them down into the grave. When He rose from death to life, He left our sin and shame there, in the grave.
Having overcome the things that torture us in this life, He now attends to our pain from the position of having conquered it. Therefore, He’s not afraid, He’s not offended. There’s nothing you can do to make Him turn away. That’s good news right, we’re never alone in our pain but the best news is that He knows the way out. So He meets us in our traumas to care for us and to show us the way to heal. The healing he purchased for us with His blood.
Since the unexpected passing of my husband and the intimacy that I experienced with Jesus through my grieving process I have a strong desire to discover God’s heart for those who who are familiar with some of the darkest valleys that we can know in this life.
Because of my curiosity, I’ve been pondering the story of Jane Marczewski. You may remember her as Nightbirde. Simon Cowell of America’s Got Talent (AGT) awarded this surprising songstress the Golden Buzzer and she was showered with massive amounts of gold confetti. Simon’s approval pushed her right past every other audition required to make it to the series of live shows. Talk about the favor of the Lord, I mean this was Simon Cowell. He was gold buzzer level impressed.
In the music industry a gold buzzer from AGT is the breakthrough a music artist needs. At the very least, it’s acknowledgement for all of the years of hard work, scrimping, saving, waiting tables, doing odd jobs, singing anywhere they’ll let you…for pennies or nothing at all. Surely, it was just the start of her dream coming true.
Course the AGT model for the show is that before Jane performs her original song titled, It’s Ok, the panel of judges asked her a few questions and Jane reveals that she is receiving cancer treatments adding, that she has a “2% chance of survival” with “some cancer in my lungs, spine and liver.”
When pressed a little more by the judges Jane replies, “You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore before you decide to be happy.” Adding, “I have a 2% chance of survival but 2% isn’t 0%. Two percent is something and I wish people knew how amazing it is.”
If you know of Jane’s breakthrough moment and pursuit of living out her dreams to sing for the world, she most certainly did make an impression on the world. And you will also know that at the age of 31, she lost her four year battle with cancer in February 2022.
What does God have to say about Jane’s life as an example to us? I’m not asking in an accusatory way, but in a genuine desire to know HIs heart for us when tragedy flips our world upside down and robs us of what we had planned, what we had hoped for, what we felt we were born to accomplish. I mean, why give us talents that we will never get to use….or at the very least, use for but a brief moment in time? I’m aware that that question creates mores questions. Why do we humans confine our value to this finite existence? Who is to say using our talents here, in this life is the only valid option?
As I combed over the multitude of material produced about Jane I listened to her profess her faith in an NBC4 interview. She said that while she does not specifically sing to a Christian audience, anything and everything that she does will be influenced by her Christian faith.
Jane was a Christian believer who consistently showed her faith in believing that God would heal her this side of the grave. And yet that didn’t happen. Did God fail her?
Jane wrote a poem titled, God is on the Bathroom Floor and in that poem you can hear her struggle with God about her pain writing, “I have called Him a cheat and a liar and I have meant it. I have told Him I wanted to die and I meant it. Tears have become the only prayer I know.”
But you also hear the intimacy she discovered about God’s heart woven in between the push and pull of living and dying. She wrote, “Call me bitter if you want to, that’s fair, count me among the angry, the cynical, the offended, the hardened but count me also among the friends of God for I have seen Him in rare form. I have felt His exhale laid in His shadow, squinted to read the message He wrote for me in the grout, I’m sad too.
In her poem Jane carries you along the journey of challenging God, looking deeper and deeper to find His heart for her. In the process she allows Jesus to embrace her, to comfort her, to speak His truth with His presence and she begins to redefine what she thought she knew about living.
There’s a song written by Maverick City, a worship group, and it’s one of the songs that Jane recorded titled, The Story I’ll Tell. The opening line is “The Hour is dark and it’s hard to see what you are doing here in the ruins and where this will lead.”
When tragedy, trauma, and even guilt and shame interrupt our lives to the degree that it’s hard to fathom how we will ever put the pieces back together, let alone even find all the pieces, where is God? Is He capable of taking what used to resemble our life or parts of it, and making any sense out of the pile of ash and dust left behind? Moments like this is when we need a life line so it’s good to remember that dust in the right hands, is new life in the making.
We need hope because even if we have a strong faith there are simply times when we can’t wrap our mind around how God will ever turn our situation into something redeemable especially when we’re limited by this life and what we know.
You may have heard me share this before because I heard this statement many times after my husband passed. It was said with the best intentions and I received it with grace. However, I found no comfort in it. God will not give you more than you can handle.
Sweet friend, I want to personally acknowledge that God most certainly allows us to experience more than we can handle. But here’s what I discovered about that.
God doesn’t allow anything that He doesn’t plan to redeem. Because of the finished work of the cross, God’s heart will always be for us to receive the fullness of our debt paid with His Son’s blood so that we can walk in the benefits here. Now. Today. Jesus is qualified and capable to redeem the pain of this life because He already has. The only missing piece is our willingness to give God our pain and allow Him to guide us to the healing He has.
In the times when we shut God out of our pain we’ve closed ourself off to anything good. Jesus is the only option for good in this life.
During Jane’s treatment she stayed at a Cancer Center for Healing in Irvine California. Owned and operated by Virginia Dixon, this facility employs what their website describes as the R.E.S.T. (Relational, Emotional, and Spiritual Truth) and the Re-Constitution Method as an integrated approach to healing. If you want to know more information on that cancer center, I’ll have the link in the show notes.
What caught my attention on this particular bit of info on Jane’s life is that it seems, and granted this is what I could discern having never been there. What I’m sharing with you today is based on a Youtube video of information produced by Virginia Dixon and the Cancer Center for Healing. It’s about their principles, practices and how that tied into Jane’s treatment there.
So what intrigued me is that they seek hope, peace and freedom in the midst of uncertainty. Because although Jane’s life had a glimmer of hope, remember 2%, all of the options were fading. In times like that life is confusing, full of chaos in your mind, literal pain in your heart, nothing familiar about your life and R.E.S.T. goes looking for hope, peace and freedom among the rubble. In the Youtube video it states (through a graphic) that “Jane’s story with R.E.S.T. is more about reconciling relational, emotional and spiritual conflicts than the implications of a medial diagnosis.”
I don’t know about you but I see that as a different approach. Maybe I’m just now becoming aware of it but seeing the person, and I mean really seeing the person not the disease alone; digging into the emotions, relationships and the spiritual nature of a person is going deeper than a physical issue, it’s acknowledging the way God created us with mind, body and spirit. He’s meshed these elements together and sometimes we need to look at these places individually.
Through a series of slides in the R.E.S.T. video it says that Jane was willing to be vulnerable and transparent, laying her brokenness on the table. She made progress and never lost sight of her dreams. Suddenly, she began to decline and became conflicted. In her despair, anger rose to the surface.
She had some tough questions for God. “Why is God doing this to me? Why is He torturing me? I still have dreams. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. I’ve done all the right things. I’m exhausted. I’m tired. I’m mad as hell.”
The next slide reveals the crux of Jane’s struggle, saying, “This was a defining moment…A root of bitterness was the source of her conflict. Her body couldn’t fight herself and cancer at the same time.”
Have you ever had your own bitter questions for God because we can replace that word cancer with doubt, fear, shame, guilt, trauma, addiction…whatever is terrorizing you.
Virginia goes on to share that “There is no procedure or medical protocol that can overcome the damage from dark intrusive thoughts we choose to believe. They must be displaced with the truth.” And that “There is life in truth! When we embrace it, regardless of how painful, it builds our faith, and making sense of the world around us becomes easier.”
That word truth always sticks out to me. It is not only key to orienting us to life but it also gifts us freedom in the here and now. And for us, as believers in the God of the Holy Bible, we know the Fountainhead of truth. Christians describe it as the Trinity. God the Father, Jesus the Son and Holy Spirit.
When I’m pondering something heavy with God, He’ll often show me things in the most unlikely places. I saw a clip on (I think it was) Instagram and it’s of Dr. Jordan Peterson talking to Joe Rogan.
I feel sure everyone knows Joe Rogan and you may also know Dr. Jordan Peterson. He is a Canadian psychologist, has an intellectual mindset yet grounded in reality, I had to mention that because sadly I think logic grounded in reality is a rare find in the psychiatry world today. I don’t know that he’s a believer but he has several episodes where he conducts round table discussions with other intellectuals and scholars on the various books of the Bible. I’m listening to the one he did on Exodus.
And because of that, I knew what Dr. Peterson was talking about with Joe Rogan. He’s telling Joe about the snakes biting the Israelites in the desert.
In the book of Numbers, Chapter 21, the Israelites go to Moses to apologize and acknowledge their sin against God and they beg Moses to plead with God for relief from the poisonous snakes. So Moses goes to God and God tells Moses to fashion a snake and lift it up on a pole and anyone who is bitten can look at it and live. So if the Israelites were obedient to God’s instructions to literally stare at what they feared, they would find life.
Then Dr. Peterson makes a reference to the scripture John 3:14, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up.”
And here’s the revelation that God gave me and I’m sure it was the point that Dr Peterson was driving home but more times than not I need God’s revelation when viewing Him through a deeply layered intellectual lens. And to be clear I’m not saying I’m the only one with this revelation. More than likely I’m late to the party but God downloads revelation when we seek to know Him.
Here’s the clarity that God gave me. Just like when the Israelites were obedient to God’s instruction to stare at what they feared (the snake) and were given life, we too can look upon the finished work of the cross because what we find is under the victorious feet of Jesus are all the fears of this life. We stare at Jesus and what we find in Him replaces our fear with His truth. We share in His victory over all the things of this life that steal, kill and destroy.
So we stare at Jesus, engage His heart, learn His word, and discover His truth. When we wrestle well with Jesus and at the same time behold His face, we discover profound beauty as He dismantles our fears and replaces them with His presence. Then we receive His peace for our anxiety, His love for our hatred, His acceptance for our rejection, His presence for our loneliness etc.
The word says that God catches our tears and that He will wipe away every tear. Keep this close to your heart, He does so with pierced, scarred hands.
Backing up just a little bit to finish the journey between Jane and Virginia Dixon. After Jane expressed her bitterness and Virginia pointed out that cancer wasn’t killing her that she was self-destructing because her body could not fight both the cancer and bitterness, the video slide says that Jane left their conversation “angry and despondent” and Virginia didn’t know whether or not she’d ever see her again.
In the song, The Story I’ll Tell, there’s a part of the chorus and why the song is titled as such. I’ve chopped it up here so what I’m getting read is not verbatim. My God did not fail…it’s the story I’ll tell. All that is left is highest praises, sing hallelujah to the Rock of Ages.
There’s another full stanza that she sings, And I’ll testify of the battles You’ve won, How You were my portion when there wasn’t enough. And I’ll sing the song of the seas that we crossed The waters You parted, the waves that I walked.
Jane showed incredible strength in the face of adversity, literal crossroads of life and death. She stood on her faith not only publicly but also in an authentic and transparent way through her music, poems and at the treatment center.
Virginia Dixon had privy to Jane’s intimate struggle with God and here’s what Virginia Dixon and R.E.S.T. shared in the Youtube video as it began to wrap up… “By faith we surrender outcomes, trusting that when God gives us a dream, He’ll make a provision.”
I know what it sounds like vs what we know happened to Jane. It’s tempting to think it was a futile fight. But read her poem, listen to her sing. Jane discovered things about God’s heart that she would have never known in any other way. The discoveries she experienced were things that we don’t have the ability to accurately verbalize.
Whether we get to hear her testimonies audibly (spoken by her) or she gets to proclaim them in the heavens beyond our human existence, she’s seen God victoriously fight her battles and intimately attended to her when she had nothing left. Her voice fills the heavens with songs of praise about the seas that they crossed together, the waters that were parted and the waves she walked in faith. Admittedly, not in the exact way Jane had initially envisioned. But rather in God’s value system, in heaven’s embrace.
And that’s Jane’s redemption. Communing daily with God, singing with the unique voice she was given, in the perfection and the opulence of how God created her. In the place where no eye has seen, no ear has heard and no human mind has conceived. In the exquisiteness that God has prepared for His beloved. The talents that we know of with regard to Jane were merely a shadow of her full expression.
I’m not saying she isn’t missed or that she didn’t leave a gapping hole in the hearts of her family, friends and all those who loved her…because if I was her parent or a sibling I would be tempted to say, well that’s great, but I really don’t care, I just want her back here with me…. but the fact remains, because death is a reality in this life, God has gone ahead of us and prepared a way, through His Son Jesus, for us to be reunited with our loved ones.
Jane has never been more her than she is in the presence of her Creator who absolutely delights in her face to face. When she opens her mouth and continues to share her beauty, her voice, her song, you better believe that God is captivated by her excellence.
The R.E.S.T. video wraps up with Virginia doing rounds at a clinic and sees Jane 3 weeks after her angry exit. Jane “beckons Virginia to come over, to get closer” and she says to Virginia, “You were right, after three weeks of wrestling with God, I’m free.”
The freedom that God has for us is rooted in dismantling the fears of this life. When we look into the face of that which terrifies us and we allow God to speak His truth into the things we think are true, the lies we believe about our world/about people, offering Him the lens we’ve created based on our experiences, He gives us Himself, His presence, His truth. In doing so we can live in victory, unafraid of the terrors of this life.
For those who have the courage to engage God about their painful places, to allow Him into our struggle with good and evil, life and death there will come a time when God asks you like He asked me and has done so on several occasions. Sherrie, If I don’t do what you’e asking me to do in the way you are expecting me do it, will you still love me? Am I still enough? I have learned that my submission to His sovereignty ensures my victory. And by victory I mean, peace that surpasses earthly comprehension, freedom to live above the brokenness of this life.
God didn’t fail Jane and He won’t fail you either. When we have the courage to authentically and genuinely look upon the face of Jesus and struggle well, offering up that which fills our mind and our heart with fear, He graciously, gently gives His victory over the grave.
Live Loved and Thrive!
Resource Links:
Poem by Jane: God is on the Bathroom Floor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5r3Nmydp8A
Youtube R.E.S.T. Video story of Jane Marcs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLbnh9FKSUwO
NCR4 Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSOhtHtbVyI
Youtube Jane singing The Story I’ll Tell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX_Mb-jsb7c
The Story I’ll Tell Lyrics: https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/maverickcitymusic/thestoryilltell.html
Dr. Jordan Peterson: Exodus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTXU78NC_h4
Nightbirde Foundation: https://www.nightbirdefoundation.org/
R.E.S.T. – Cancer Center of Healing website: https://www.virginiadixon.com/
