Embodied: Katie Jo Ramsey's Monthly Newsletter
Embodied.
Thank you for signing up! I recently started this monthly newsletter to create a little more space in your soul + story for joy. Embodied is all about facing life with courage + mindfulness to more fully experience the joy of life in Christ. I hope this little monthly conversation can soothe, stir, + spark joy in your life. I'm so glad you are here.
Finding Jesus' Rest
When We Wonder If It's a Lie
Yesterday our pastor read from Matthew 11:28-30, and I wasn’t sure I believed it:
Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Is there actually rest for our souls? Is Jesus’ burden actually light?
I wanted the comfort of the words. But I had to be honest with myself and God that I wasn’t experiencing them as true. How can I find rest for my soul, even when my circumstances remain heavy? Even having asked these questions for over a decade, I still have to find my way to truth through honesty about how little I believe it sometimes.
I came to unbelief through pain. And don’t we all?
(My husband took these glorious photos + so deserves a shout-out.)
Friday my new rheumatologist looked me in the eyes after pointing out over a dozen areas of swelling and inflammation and said, “You are in a severe disease flare, and it is going to take a while to get you out of it.” With some medication changes, the end of this past week was rough. By Friday afternoon I could barely walk and was struggling to think coherently. (Pain does that!) By Saturday the pain was so severe I wept and was too sick to leave bed because of the thick fatigue and nausea. (For those who don’t know, severe autoimmune flares tend to make your body feel flu-ish on top of the pain itself. Your body is fighting hard against its own tissues, using all its energy to fight itself. It leaves you feeling like a pile of shit. Excuse my French.)
By Sunday, I was starting to feel better from an increased dosage of steroids working its half-hearted, peace-making magic on the fight waging inside my body. So I went to church with my husband, where I promptly realized how resentful I was starting to feel toward God.
"Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."
I think I laughed inside when I heard the pastor read that. Rest? You’ll give me rest? When do you think you’ll do that, God? The past few weeks had brought one difficulty after another, and I was starting to feel shortchanged. I’ve longed for God’s peace, sought it, and even tasted it; but hard things kept coming.
Trusting God to take care of us in pain, difficulty, and suffering is complex and confusing. But the way to trust isn’t silencing our anger. It’s being curious about it, welcoming it as a guide, and offering it with honesty to the God who already knows how we really feel about him.
So, sitting in church, annoyed and frustrated but also glad I could make it to worship and wasn’t stuck in bed, I decided I would stay curious about Jesus’ words and my irritated reaction to them: I wonder what Jesus’ rest can feel like. I wonder what more this passage means. I wonder what the easy yoke and light burden of Jesus can feel like in place of and beside my present heaviness. I want to learn from Jesus’ lowliness and humility of heart so I can experience his rest.
Pain and difficulty often create mistrust and resentment because we want to protect ourselves from more pain and disappointment. But curiosity about the mismatch between our present experiences and the truth God offers in his Word sometimes is the gateway to trust…and rest…and joy.
Finding Jesus’ Rest
A couple hours after church my husband and I drove a winding canyon road into the mountains, searching for the fall foliage our hearts came to love in our last 5 years of being Colorado residents. Now that we are temporarily further north, living in Bozeman, Montana, we knew we might not get to enjoy the splendor of Aspen season like we loved in Colorado. But we went searching for beauty anyway. We found orange and yellow among the underbrush and cottonwood trees but not the canary gold glitter of Aspen leaves rustling in the wind. It wasn’t quite what we were hoping for. Just like this month has not been quite what I’ve been hoping for.
Almost giving up at the end of the road, we decided to take the short hike up to Palisade Falls. Five steps into the tiny, .7 mile hike I almost gave up. My left hip, knee, and ankle were terribly inflamed, and I was walking about as well as an 80 year old. But, dammit, I need to see some beauty, and I didn’t want my body to rob me of any more joy that weekend. So I kept hobbling forward, grimacing and groaning but becoming more and more aglow with the joy of beauty with each effortful step.
In Matthew 11 Jesus invites us to come to him, to take his yoke and to learn from him. Finding Jesus’ rest is not an inactive, involuntary process. It involves effort. It involves grimacing through the anger of our present circumstances in search of a greater truth that is more mysterious than our hearts can ascertain in the moment. Finding Jesus’ rest means placing ourselves in a position to see more than our pain and difficulties; it means putting ourselves in a position to encounter and receive “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable…” (Philippians 4:8, CSB)
Yesterday, for me that meant hunting for beauty among the cottonwoods and rocks, and then glistening in wonder under the mixture of rain and waterfall water, thankful I didn’t give up on finding joy even though my body was groaning.
I don’t know exactly what finding Jesus’ rest will look like tomorrow. And I don’t know what it needs to look like for you. But I do know that today I believe in Jesus’ rest and comfort more than I could yesterday morning. I know that today I am rested and ready for work, having sought and found a taste of Jesus’ easy yoke in the mountain beauty.
Come to him. Put yourself in a position to receive. Let him hear your honest anger and struggle to trust. Stay curious about what you feel and stay curious about where you might find Jesus’ rest. He’s in the beauty. He’s in the changing leaves and the beckoning call to look up and look past our present groans. His yoke is easy, and his burden is light. May you find that to be more true today than you even knew you needed.
Neurobiology Narratives
Wondering what I am talking about when I wax poetic about the power of interpersonal neurobiology? Listen to Dr. Dan Siegel's introduction. As a therapist, I draw strongly from the field of interpersonal neurobiology, which helps us understand and engage the power of relationships as a force for healing and wholeness. In future months, I plan to share more practical insights and tools from interpersonal neurobiology that you are not going to want to miss! For now, I hope this intro helps you keep tracking.
Writing Updates
As most of you know, I am working on getting my first book published. Phew! This process has been full of more joy, long hours, and feelings of insecurity than I imagined. Turns out putting your heart and soul into something is pretty vulnerable! Things are moving forward faster than I really expected, and for that I am grateful and in need of prayer. I can't share many details yet, but I would love prayer for energy as I keep working hard, protection from the evil one (spiritual warfare is real, and I've felt that profoundly lately), and for God's leading in getting this book out with the right publisher so we can best reach more people who are suffering long-term with the joy Christ offers.
Here are some details I can actually share with you!
The book is now being aimed at a wide audience of Christians enduring many different forms of long-term suffering, instead of just chronic pain or illness. I'm really excited to connect this message to more people, as I think it's a message for every Christian who suffers, not just the ones who suffer like I do.
A couple weeks ago I signed with a great agent, Andrew Wolgemuth. Andrew has already been an encouraging partner in this, and I'm thrilled to have a support I go through the confusing, exhausting publishing process both for this book and future books.
If you want a little taste of some of the potential content for the book, check out this article which was published with Fathom Magazine this month: "The Education I Never Signed Up For"
I was on a podcast! Check out the Enneacast episode on Enneagram Childhood Messages + Healing here. Please don't hate me for my horrendous (but hilarious) stereotyping at the end.
You may have noticed a slight name change. I'm officially going by KJ Ramsey for writing moving forward! It's what most of my close friends call me, and it is slightly less confusing for everyone. I also feel like JK Rowling now--so that's a plus for my ego...
I also redesigned my website! So go check out the new beauty over there: kjramsey.com
Thanks for being the kind of person who values depth and creating space for joy. It's an honor to share words and space with you, even in the form of an email.
One last thing--if you made it this far!--I'd love for this monthly conversation to be two-way! Since you now know a bit more about the crazy crap happening with my disease, I'd love to know something you are struggling with so I can be praying for you, too. If you feel comfortable sharing, click this link to shoot me an email. It's an honor to suffer with you, dear reader, one I don't take lightly.
In the fellowship of the suffering, risen Jesus,
KJ
kjramsey.com
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