What My Celebrity Crush Taught Me About Life

I have a confession to make: Brené Brown is my celebrity crush.

She probably wouldn’t like being referred to as a celebrity, as she has much more substance than many of them.

The reason I mention her is that one of the many gems she talks about is the importance of experiencing our grief. We all have grief, so there’s no point denying it. But we all try to deny it in different ways.

What Brown says, though, is that when we try to numb the pain of life, we also numb the joy. There’s a tragic irony in that, because we numb pain by trying to feel better, whether it be through consumerism, entertainment, booze, sex, or anything external.

But in trying to feel better, we settle for second best, at best. In doing so, we deny ourselves the joy of living, the joy of everything this life has to offer. We need to let it sink in that our addictions don’t serve us.

Life for many of us is tragic at times, and it’s sacrificial, suffering love that is the narrow road to life.

Jesus’ surprising night of joy

I’m always moved by the fact that the only time Jesus talks about his own joy is on the night before he dies.

It’s on the night when he’s forced to endure a completely unjust trial, during which his best mates completely desert him. He’s spat on, beaten to a pulp, and utterly rejected.

He sweats blood, such is his anguish, all the while knowing that the next day he will be executed in what is probably the most humiliating way ever devised (As the Australian theologian, Rikk Watts, has said, people were crucified completely naked and there were no toilet breaks on the cross. It was the worst possible public humiliation and shame).

Jesus — to the very friends about to abandon him — talks about his joy.

Think about that for a minute.

The courage Jesus showed that night is gobsmacking. A guy who taught to love your enemies did exactly that when it mattered.

They say that character is who you are when the chips are down. To still believe in loving your friends and enemies when it was all going completely pear-shaped is just what Jesus did. That’s a guy worth emulating in my book, even if you don’t believe his claims about himself.

Jesus faced life on life’s terms. He didn’t demand that life go his way. That doesn’t mean he didn’t want it to. After all, he did pray in the garden to be spared from what he was about to go through. But he added, “not my will, but yours be done.” He accepted it and was committed to facing whatever was to happen to him.

The gift of pain

Facing our pain doesn’t mean being a masochist and looking for pain. Jesus was no masochist. He was a realist. We don’t need to go looking for pain; we all have it. What we need to do is acknowledge it, get honest and real about it, and face up to it.

The great thing about doing that is that we will change for the better. We will become more whole and will experience deeper joy.

Facing pain doesn’t just help you survive it — it changes who you become, sometimes in ways that put people off. People who knew you a certain way might not like the new you, but that’s something they’ll just have to deal with.

The late Dr. Larry Crabb offered examples of this. He said that the self-protectively nice person who never says no and who is now more lovingly assertive might come across as lazy and stubborn. Or the always-assertive person who never really listened to others and who is now more lovingly gentle and listens more than talks might be seen as lacking in leadership. Maturity can be unpredictable, but it’s the path to life.

It’s the wise and discerning person who will notice these often subtle changes in those who have faced their pain and come out the other side as more whole and healthy humans.

The people I find who have the most real and authentic relationship with God are those who have deeply suffered and been able to process their suffering in ways that have brought deep healing and wholeness. They’re not satisfied with pat answers. These are more human than they once were. They are more of what God intends them to be.

Thanks, Brené Brown, for the reminder that when we numb our pain, we also numb our joy. May we have the courage to face life on life’s terms, just like Jesus showed us.