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When You're Ready - This Is How You Heal Order Printed Copy

Author: Brianna Wiest
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About the Book

"When You're Ready - This Is How You Heal" by Brianna Wiest is a guide to healing from trauma, heartbreak, and pain. It offers practical advice and exercises to help readers navigate their emotions, let go of past hurts, and find peace within themselves. Through self-reflection and self-care practices, readers can gradually begin to heal and move forward towards a more positive and fulfilling life.

Calvin Miller

Calvin Miller was a pastor, professor and storyteller, best known for The Singer Trilogy, a mythic retelling of the New Testament story in the spirit of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. Miller passed away on the afternoon of August 19, 2012, due to complications after heart surgery. He was 75. A prolific artist and a writer's writer, Miller garnered respect and praise throughout his career from peers like Luci Shaw, Max Lucado and Philip Yancey. He was the author of more than forty books of popular theology and Christian inspiration including such recent books as Letters to Heaven, The Path of Celtic Prayer, Letters to a Young Pastor and his memoir Life Is Mostly Edges. In addition to his twenty years of pastoral service at Westside Church in Omaha, Nebraska, Miller was also a great mentor to many students and leaders through his preaching and pastoral ministry classes at Beeson Divinity School. Calvin Miller, never one to multiply words, used just four to describe his rule of life: "Time is a gift." RESCUE FROM THE SLUSH PILE In October 1973 one important book was rescued from the slush pile (the stack of unsolicited manuscripts every publisher receives) by assistant editor Don Smith. He read a manuscript by a little-known Baptist pastor in Nebraska that was a poetic retelling of the life of Jesus—portraying him as a Troubadour. Both he and Linda Doll excitedly encouraged Jim Sire to take this imaginative manuscript seriously. In February 1974 Sire wrote the author, Calvin Miller, that IVP wanted to publish his book The Singer. Months before, Miller had been waking up nights, stirred to write this tale, perhaps unconsciously inspired by the recent Broadway hits Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell. Later Miller wrote: When the manuscript was done, I sent it to Jim Sire at InterVarsity Press. “It’s good,” he said, “but we want to think about it a couple of weeks before we give you an answer.” So I waited until finally the letter came. They were going to do it. Jim Sire had done his Ph.D. on John Milton, and the fact that he liked it was joy immeasurable to me. “But,” he cautioned, “we’re going to print five thousand of these. They may not do well—in fact we may end up with four thousand of them on skids in our basement for the next ten years. Still, it’s a good book and deserves to be in print.” Far more than a thousand copies sold. Actually, over three hundred times that amount sold in its first decade. It became “the most successful evangelical publication in this genre.” The Singer was followed in two years by The Song (paralleling the story of the early church in Acts) and two years after that by The Finale (inspired by the book of Revelation). Publication of The Singer changed Miller’s life. Even though he stayed in the pastorate for many years, it set him on a course of writing and speaking that he could not have imagined.

what if my singleness never ends

It happened suddenly this past May, the moment I’d prayed for and sought after for quite some time: the moment I became okay with lifelong singleness. Something inside me relaxed as I sat at a coffee shop, my mind not even on relationships but preoccupied with a menu over dinner with friends. And then suddenly, I felt content to be single — not only for another few months, or even years, but even until the day I die, if God chooses that for me. “I don’t want to skip what God chooses to give me during singleness.” More than ever before, the years stretching out before me don’t seem like a romance-less, spouse-less, and (okay, let’s face it) sex-less gray void. It was a beautiful moment that could come only from God, a moment of triumph over an idol that has long battled for the throne of my heart. Whether it’s for a season or a lifetime, I’ve found that I don’t want to skip what God chooses to give me during singleness. Already Loved The more weddings I attend (which is several a year at this stage of life), the more the feeling sinks in that I may never be a bride. But the feeling isn’t altogether sad. Because I’m already dressed in white, you see. My friends’ immaculate dresses and the wedding day itself symbolize something mysterious and beautiful: the “robe of righteousness” God’s people already wear (Isaiah 61:10) and the “fine linen, bright and pure” we will put on at the wedding feast of the Lamb (Revelation 19:8). I’m already pursued by someone who wove the very sinews of my being together. I’m already loved with a love that will outlast every other. I’m already known more intimately than I can fathom. It’s so easy to read that last paragraph and think “so cliché,” especially since this is yet another Christian article about singleness. Just be still. Do you realize what that paragraph means? You’re known just as you are (1 Corinthians 13:12). Even the inmost places of your heart — the darkest, the brightest, the most wounded, the most joyful, the most romantic — God knows and comprehends them to their depths. He cares for your unspoken and most intimate needs. There isn’t a thought you can speak before God knows it’s there (Psalm 139:4). Dwell on that. Do God’s presence and promises carry so little preciousness that we can scoff and declare them “cliché”? Faulty Assumptions So often, we spout inane phrases to single people like “God will bring you the right guy.” They reveal the heart so completely: I have to have a romantic relationship in my life at some point to be whole. We might subtly think, I don’t have to have it now, God. Or even next month. But at some point, God, you’ve gotta bring someone for me to marry. But he doesn’t. God does not have to bring us someone to marry. He simply is not obligated to do anything for us that is not for his glory and for our joy in him. And since we’re not all-knowing, we cannot claim to know what will give us the most long-term joy. We can make guesses, certainly. But the ultimate decision is up to our God, who has never ceased to provide exactly what his people need — from the garments of skin worn by Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:21) to our own daily bread (Matthew 6:11). “I am already loved with a love that will outlast every other.” I’m not saying you won’t have difficult days where you yearn to be a husband or wife (I have those days too!), but I am saying that Jesus will meet you in those difficult times. He is gloriously gracious like that. The Spirit is willing and able to teach your heart many things, including contentment in singleness as long as God sees fit — and even if it’s lifelong. Don’t get me wrong: seeking marriage is great. If you’re interested in a godly someone, use wisdom and discernment and be intentional about it. But don’t fret. You may marry that person, and you may not. Whatever happens, don’t let it overshadow what God has already done for you and the glorious place you are headed. Three Suggestions “That’s great,” you may say as you read this. “But how can I do that?” I don’t pretend to know the complete answer to that question, but here are three suggestions that have helped me. 1. Recognize that you can’t be content on your own. Contentment is a work of God (Philippians 4:11–13). Pray to him for it. Lay your will and your heart down completely, and not in a way where you’re trying to be holy and spiritual so that you can get the “true prize” in your eyes. God can change your heart from that too; just ask. He is a Father who listens to his children. 2. Second, don’t surround yourself with romance. I’m not saying avoid all your friends’ weddings — each is a time for rejoicing and celebrating God’s work in their lives! But don’t inundate yourself with romantic comedies and TV shows and books and other media that are constantly focused on romance. Doing this can easily irritate wounds and give a foothold for envy and comparison to wreak havoc on your emotions. 3. And third, enjoy singleness. Seriously. If you’re not content in singleness, then you won’t be content in marriage. Spouses and significant others are not contentment charms; wedding vows are not magic incantations that produce lifelong fulfillment. “If you’re not content in singleness, then you won’t be content in marriage.” Give your time to ministering to friends and your community. Pursue your interests intently. Learn to manage your money. These activities do not have to be less fulfilling just because you are spouse-less! Believe it or not, if you do marry, there will be times when you yearn for singleness, and it isn’t likely to come again (at least not in the same way). A Better Goal So I come alongside you as a fellow single, encouraging you to join me in laying down the idol of romance. Let’s prepare now to better serve a future spouse or, if we never marry, to enjoy Jesus no matter married or not. Marriage is great, but it isn’t ultimate. The honor of “ultimate” remains with our true romance: the God who creates, sustains, intervenes in, and pursues the hearts of his people from eternity to eternity (Psalm 90:1–2). Amen.