Take Heart

by Keziah Jospeh - A Beautiful Withness Series

I first heard Sarah’s theology of ‘The Beautiful Withness’ earlier this summer. A week later, fascist riots broke out across my nation.

My immediate thought was, “Here we go” bracing as if for physical impact, though miles away from the violence at the time. 

My cortisol levels rose familiarly as a mix of fear, anger and exhaustion swirled inwardly. The undercurrent of racist hate in the ‘United Kingdom’ had broken through again at an opportune moment and I was left feeling unsafe and alone, even though with other Christians. They were not the target of this hate and their understanding of what this meant for me was limited. 

As a child I was full of joy and optimism and then, biblically speaking, someone told me I was naked. So much of my identity has been defined for me by other people from as young as 4 years old. My dark skinned body was politicised before I even had a chance to know or love it as the Lord does. I’ve experienced small-t, large-T and cumulative trauma over the course of my relatively short life (I’m a couple months into 32) as a result of a lifetime of racism and colourism, instances of emotional and spiritual abuse, bullying, sexual assault and death. I’ve battled for years to maintain my mental health in the midst of this, but the last two years have been particularly trying. 

2023, I lost the safety of my church community following a significant act of exclusion and neglect and I had an accident at work that could have been fatal and the theatre only admitted liability after 8 long months of lieing about and diminishing the incident. During that time I was sexually assaulted on a night coach home by a man who groped and strangled me “in his sleep” and dealt with bullying, gaslighting, microaggressions and anti-theism on another job early in 2024. My financial situation has been the most unstable it’s ever been, causing a lot of money-related anxiety and making it incredibly difficult to receive the psychotherapy I needed.  Then in October just gone, a man made racial slurs on the night tube, the same kind of rhetoric that spread across the country during the fascist riots in the summer. The same spirit of violence surging as this man physically threatened anyone on the silent carriage who disagreed, and then suddenly locked on to me, flashing a knife now and saying he was going to slice me “from mouth to ear and no-one will be able to do anything about it because [he’s] ex-armed forces”. 

I’ve heard and read countless words about what an onslaught of ‘demonic oppression’ and ‘spiritual attack’ means, what it says about my calling, and why it’s happened to me. I remember in Religious Education, the Christian answer to the age old question, “If God loves us, then why does evil & suffering happen?” was the philosophy of free will and our own abuse of it. Whilst I agree with this to some extent, I’ve seen that the reality of the system of suffering that we live in is a lot messier. The wicked prosper. The sun rises on the evil as well as the good and we suffer not necessarily because of human brokenness or karmic action, but because we are in a constant battle with principalities, powers and spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. God being an option for the “why” of suffering however, I have continued to strongly reject.

What I have grappled with though, is the “Where?” Where is God when the suffering happens? Did granting us free will mean God just looks on as we humans self-destruct? As if more like the person filming a crime on their phone, rather than the brave individual stepping in immediately to change the situation?

How can it be that an all-powerful, all loving God doesn’t ‘break the rules’ and intervene when a sweet girl I went to school with and her sister are brutally murdered by a satanist who believed he would win the lottery if he killed two Black women? 11,000 children are bombed and killed in adult conflict, lives are uprooted by war and climate disasters, 49.6 million people are in modern day slavery and 1 in 4 people are victims of sexual abuse? And the concubine of a Levite man is gang raped all night to the point of death only to be cut up by her ‘holy’ husband and divided amongst the 12 tribes of Israel? (Judges 19)

The reality is, when we talk about God’s intervention, we often mean prevention. God stopping a situation of suffering from ever happening. Well arguably, the ultimate form of intervention was God giving us Themself because now we can be redeemed by radical grace, restored to the Father and everything will one day be renewed! One day. But not yet.

It is in this tension that the heartbeats of withness begin to pulse loudly for me.

Emmanuel, literally meaning ‘God with us’, takes on flesh and becomes the ultimate mediator for humanity. ‘With us’ in His unmatched understanding of our experience and suffering. There is nothing that I go through that Jesus hasn’t also, either from his life as a human or from taking on every sin, sickness, disease and sorrow of the world on the cross. I don’t have to explain racism to Jesus or hope that he’ll understand the complexities of growing up in a context of systemic injustice. He knew it and He overcame it. And that is a powerful withness.

 

Withness is also the armour of God. Many times, I’ve sipped the Kool Aid that people that looked like me were cursed. That a lack of melanin was indicative of superiority and proximity to God and this hierarchy was God’s design for humanity – a highly pervasive lie when you consider all that God has “allowed” to happen to the Black community particularly at the hands of the Church.

But the Armour of God is a powerful withness. Particularly for me, ‘the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God’. Through the Spirit my mind is renewed, my identity restored and my eyes opened, the word is illuminated and the secrets of God are made known. This has been a significant part of my testimony and I’m so grateful to God for revelations that have exposed the rancid poison lacing the Kool Aid. Lies about God’s character and creation that are inherently blasphemous. I tuck tightly into my belt of truth that I am the apple of God’s eye, God’s chosen treasure, a royal priesthood and fearfully and wonderfully made. 

I think of Elijah fleeing into the wilderness, depressed and suicidal, and how God let him sleep and provided him with food and drink before anything else, then spoke to him in a whisper. I think about my own mental health struggles and the diagnosis of complex PTSD and OCD that I received this year, how I’ve broken down weeping, exhausted myself to sleep with panic and been paralysed with dread as I’ve woken up. Comfort has come through a tangible feeling of God’s presence, of peace and of His angels surrounding me. Or someone suddenly prompted to check up on me at the exact moment I need it. Or the pure love of a baby or a pet. Sometimes it’s been the provision of something sentimental that only God would know I needed in that moment. To be intimately known like this by my Creator is a powerful withness. 

As previously mentioned, we often perceive answered prayer as the clearest evidence of God being with us. And yet it is the form of withness that is also easily forgotten! Elijah had just experienced an incredible show of God’s power in direct answer to his prayers, before he fled to the wilderness. I’ve made a concerted effort to make verbal ‘ebenezers’ –  that is, reminders of answered prayer, in the form of sharing them as testimony whenever I can. It’s also been good to note that answered prayer has often looked different to how I thought it would. Small turnings of events that set mighty wheels in motion for great future redemption. God bringing beauty from ashes is a powerful withness. I love the story of Gospel music for this! From a horrifically dehumanised people came a truly anointed and accomplished style of music that holds so much spiritual weight because of the circumstances it came out of. Gospel music has brought joy, hope and strength and continued to bless nations across the globe for genetations, as well as inspire countless other musical genres. 

Lastly, withness is two way. I am named after one of the daughters of Job in the Old Testament. Job was a faithful man of God who lost everything and was mercilessly tortured by Satan as a means of testing his loyalty to God. He railed against God, even questioned His goodness, but he stayed resolutely in relationship with Him. This story taught me a lot about suffering, but moreso about this audacious authentic relational aspect of withness. Our loyalty particularly in the face of suffering, is a powerful withness.

In summary, engaging with withness is a beautiful endeavour. For me, ‘beautiful’ and ‘powerful’ have been interchangeable. Withness has enabled me to ‘take heart’ and know that Jesus has ‘overcome the world’ even when suffering abounds. Unlike suffering though, withness is eternal! And nothing in all creation will ever change that. 

Keziah is a British Afro-Caribbean neuro-expansive award-winning actor, interdisciplinary artist, writer and singer who has worked extensively in both theatre and radio, devised Performance Art and SoundArt projects and lent her speaking and singing voice to many a creative project and church service. She co-founded and led a racial justice team for her church for 8 years and is in the start up phase of founding a ministry for Black and Global Majority single women.Connect with Keziah here:

@Nothinglikeadames

@itsthatkeziah