Tag Archives: pain

Love Is a Pain

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I escaped the anxiety epidemic, I thought. Until this year.

I didn’t admit depression. Until last year. Only after taking antidepressants did I know the truth of my years of depression.

It’s late September, and anxiety adds itself to my truth. Anxiety feels different than depression, which for me exhibits as heaviness, intense overwhelm, and anger. Instead, a growing undercurrent of angst and tension in my thoughts and feelings came as a surprise—anxiety. I feel resentful about being “the only one who cleans around here,” nervous about irritating my friends, and more grouchy than usual because the kids “never listen to me”—anxiety.

I can’t blame a change in circumstances; life carries on as usual. I have to own an internal landscape of crankiness. In my journal I write, “I’m anxious but somehow I’m not letting it rise up. I’m not connecting well with myself or others. I don’t know what to do with this inner Rubik’s Cube of mental and emotional colors. There is no ‘lining up,’ just a lot of turning and twisting and muttering. I don’t feel depressed or exhausted, just a buzz of not-okay-ness, and fretting about what other people are thinking or doing.”

When my inner world gets uncomfortable, I settle for the companionship of fear. When I settle for fear, I choose to think instead of feeling. If I think rather than feel, I’ll have an an acceptable answer for most questions. If I think rather than feel, I tell myself, I reduce the risk of rejection; I avoid confronting what I don’t understand about myself; I cannot get stuck in feelings. If I think rather than feel, I will be dependable, and that, my friends, is very important.

I fear transience of warm feelings, and permanence of cold feelings.

I fear loss of control. Not measuring up. Disappointing someone. Sigh. Doesn’t that essentially mean I live afraid of life? No wonder I feel anxious. I can’t stop the world and get off.

Now that I know I’m anxious, what’s next? There are too many options: medication or meditation, solitary confinement (okay, that’s more of a wish than a real option), exercise, more coffee or less coffee, structure or flexibility.

I’ve been through this enough times to know fixing is not the loving response. But what is? Does love sit in the feelings? Maybe the loving response is reception—not the kind with cake and punch, but the kind that’s about welcome. Could receiving feelings be different than sitting in feelings? More like open hands and less like sackcloth and ashes?

When I think about setting the emotional tone in myself and in our home, I think of zen peacefulness—wouldn’t it be lovely if I were un-ruffleable?

But love is not only the ocean’s vast calm. It also knows the waves of anger, fear, and bitterness. Is it a ship? A lighthouse? A squawking seagull? What form does love take in the steady pounding of reality?

Perhaps love is the pain of not being in control.

I know well the pain of trying to control, and the aftermath of disconnection when I succeed in control. I am less familiar with the pain of releasing control. This pain is the pain of God’s very existence; the pain of having children who have a choice.

I want to control my children. I really, really want to control them. Also, I don’t want to control them. I know it’s not love, and desperately I want to love them.

I want to feel the raw pain of love rather than the grasping anxiety of control. I want my discomfort to be worthwhile. Let me trade in an obsession with control for the wildness of not being in control. Here my soul will meet with God, inside the terrifying invitation to feel. I will feel the risks of rejection, unknowing, and transience. They accompany my choice to love, and indicate that I have chosen to feel. God is here. Let control crash and burn. Loving is enough.

Also, I will medicate, and meditate, and drink more or less caffeine.

Shout out to my friend KL for the Rubik’s Cube analogy, and to Julia Cameron for the invitation to name fears that compel me to think instead of feeling.

Freedom! From My Husband

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“You have time for everything but me.” Michael spoke with resignation from his side of the bed.

I sat tense on my side of the bed. We’d had this conversation many times, and it always sounded the same. We knew it so well we probably could’ve saved time and argued in our sleep.

Not sure what to say, I listed a few of the times I had spent with him recently—a three-hour conversation Monday night, a date last Thursday, a movie yesterday after the kids were in bed. It didn’t matter. He was talking about his heart, not my schedule.

We have been awkward partners in the dance of intimacy since we met. We were head-over-heels for each other and spent up to sixty hours a week together—every moment outside of sleep, classes, and our part-time jobs on the college campus. Sometimes I wanted space, but I didn’t know how to say that. Since I didn’t ask for space, I created space with busyness or emotional distance. This had the opposite of the desired effect. Whenever I created space, Michael came closer. He wanted more time, more talking, more touching—always more. I generally tried to keep showing up, but when I inevitably created space in an under-handed way, Michael would be hurt and ask for more from me to reassure him that we were okay.

This pattern continued into our marriage. We were happy together, made decisions with minimal drama, enjoyed each other’s friendship and company, and survived many difficult conversations. But the pattern of me moving away and Michael moving closer (until he lost hope and stonewalled) stayed the same, and perhaps became even more pronounced. When kids came along and being alone was my deepest desire and most cherished dream, it didn’t help the situation.

That thing they say about the only way out of your pain is through it?—they’re right. Over the last few years, we’ve had some awful days and weeks walking through our pain. We’ve both had to make peace with feelings of rejection. Michael feels rejected when I move away from him, and I feel rejected when he can’t respect my desire for space. We both feel wrong sometimes—about ourselves, about each other. But it turns out you can’t mechanically fix a person or a relationship.

Mainly we talked, we listened, we cried, and we felt a lot of pain we had been avoiding. Michael slowly came to believe that I like him and I’m not going anywhere, even though sometimes I crave space. I slowly came to believe that Michael likes me and will still be my friend even if I move away from him. I think this is called trust.

Earlier this month, as Michael was preparing for a work trip, I kept reminding him to give me his flight times so I’d know when he would be leaving and getting back. The info was on his work computer and never handy when I asked. One evening when I brought it up again, I handed him my laptop and asked him to put the info in my calendar. He still didn’t have it nearby. Instead of flight times, he blocked out four days with the heading “Freedom!”

While he was away the following week, I chuckled each time I looked at my calendar, and every time it felt like a small miracle that we could joke about me enjoying some alone time. What used to be a trigger, a subject so dreaded that we tiptoed around it, is now an open conversation and a relational dynamic to laugh about. Oh the joys of setting the thermostat however I want and having the bed to myself.

I can’t tell you how it happened, and I guess that’s why I use the word “miracle.” Yes, we walked through our pain, we went to counseling, we fought and cried and believed lies about ourselves and each other and had to pry those lies up with a crowbar to find the truth. But then there was an element of magic, a change in the weather, a glimmer of hope that turned into quiet trust. And that is something no amount of work can bring about.

Freedom!

Righteous Rest

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Righteous Rest

Reflections – week 4

Welcome to the fourth week of reflections inspired by my current small groups. Together with some of my favorite women, I’m exploring these books: Father’s House, and The Whole Language. Gregory Boyle, author of The Whole Language, founded Homeboy Industries, the largest gang intervention and rehab program in the world. The Whole Language is his third book, and my favorite. Boyle frequently refers to “mysticism,” and if—like me—you’re not sure what that is, I invite you to just roll with it. Thank you for journeying with me.

Dead

I have a tenuous relationship with metaphors around the cross of Jesus—bridge, sacrifice, torn veil. I’m also unsure why we’re excited about a symbol of brutal, torturous death. We don’t wear miniature gold guillotines or electric chairs on delicate chains around our necks. But even if I can get past crucifixion pedantry, I still have questions. Did Jesus die as me or for me? Did He take punishment, or natural consequences, or did He simply enter into human suffering? Did He free all humanity, or only those who confess His name? Do I reap the reward of what He accomplished today, or only in the afterlife?

The authors of Father’s House believe that Jesus died as me, and while I don’t share their certainty, I love where they go from there: “The old you, the you that is still trying to measure up, died.”1 Now that is good news. Performing me is dead. Striving me is dead. Ashamed me is dead. The apostle Paul believed we were crucified with Christ, and exclaimed, “Could it be any clearer that our former identity is now and forever deprived of its power!”2 Having spent the last decade imprisoned by my own self, the possibility of leaving that behind is tremendously appealing.

The New Testament talks about the “old” and the “new” person. I like to think of them as a fake self and a real self. I was a facade. Now I am genuine. This moving into righteousness is not a move from bad to good, but a move from fragmented to whole, death to life. Behavior is always and only a side note. Good behavior centers me on shaky ground; bad behavior centers me on shaky ground. When I mess up, and when I have it all together, I need to be reminded that it’s not about behavior. “Righteous” is not a tally sheet, it’s a birth certificate.

Righteousness is Mysticism is Connectedness

Week #4 in Father’s House is all about righteousness, and the belief that “I am as righteous as Jesus Christ.”3 I want to short-circuit the voice in my heart and head that believes it’s all about behavior. I want to confuse, divert, or undermine my pesky inner parole officer. I have been imprisoned by my humanness, convinced I can only get out on good behavior, so each reminder in the Lesson Four video teaching is hope:

– Righteousness is not a verb, it’s a noun

– Righteousness is simply received, not achieved

– Righteousness is not dependent on my obedience

– Righteousness is about who I trust, not what I do

– Righteousness is received by faith, not by feeling

Righteousness ushers in a whole new way of seeing. Gregory Boyle writes, “The world will focus on outcomes or behavior or success. Mysticism glances just above what the world has in its sights. It puts judgment on check. It develops a warmth for everything that comes its way and rests in the center of it. When we are whole, that’s what we see in others.”4 Then we all warm up around the radiant heat of connectedness.

Boyle continues, “This culture of mystical tenderness holds every soul in high regard. …high performance is not the goal, but rather, a surrender to healing is. Then everyone finds this gentle road and practices, with each other, the pathway home.”5

Papa God is relentless in His passionate devotion to my wholeness and healing. When I soak in this—in the crazy truth that I am righteous—transformation is loosed, I live from a seat of rest, and I begin tapping into my heart’s desires instead of listening to my inner parole officer. I become confident in God’s presence to do the impossible with and through me, to invite everyone home.6

Righteous Conviction

In John 16:8, Jesus says the Spirit “will convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment” (NKJV). Day Two reading in Father’s House shocks me: “This [John 16:8] is the only time in the entire New Testament that there is mention of the Holy Spirit convicting of sin… and it is in response to those who do not believe in Him! As a believer, this says He wants to convict you of something completely different: your righteousness. Holy Spirit knows that reminding you of who you are, the righteousness of God in Christ, empowers you…”7

So the voice inside of me that points out how much I fall short is NOT the Holy Spirit, or any part of God? Why am I listening to it? Instead, I may hear a voice that convicts me of righteousness, a voice that notices all the beautiful things in me and says that is who I truly am. This voice looks for goodness and finds it. This voice spends its time bringing to light righteousness (not sin).

Embodied Healing

Another analogy I’m not fond of is the “robe of righteousness.” Robes are not attractive, they don’t keep my feet warm, and they are not all-day wear (except when it’s cold in the house and I wear my robe over my clothes). It’s quite possible royal robes were more common than bath robes in Jesus’ day, but having no experience with royal robes I’m not sure how to relate. Also, a robe can be taken on and off, and I’m not keen on transient righteousness. But, because I’m just a wee bit compelled to follow directions, I explored my thoughts about a robe of righteousness, as instructed in Father’s House. To my surprise, I found a thought that fits me.Skin is the largest organ of the human body. Clothing is intimate. It makes sense that God would draw near to me in a way that touches my skin. Touch keeps me present. It draws me out of my head and into my body, and God knows I need all the help I can get to stay present in my body.

Our bodies carry pain, and sometimes we divorce ourselves to get away from the pain. We do a thousand things to survive, many of which we don’t even realize we’re doing. It takes time to sort this out and let love into the picture. The folks Gregory Boyle connects with carry unimaginable amounts of pain and trauma. Extravagant tenderness creates space for that pain to be seen. “When you enter the program,” a homie said, “you need to bring your pain with you.”8 Connection and healing happen when we allow our wound to be seen, and then to be touched. Boyle suggests that “Healing takes a lifetime but surrender to this moment can carry you.”9 Love creates the space to surrender to this moment, to stay present to ourselves. “To be nurtured is to be reverent for what is happening to you.”10 Grace is reverence for pain.

Rest and Love

Striving to be “good” takes a boatload of energy. I remember when my oldest daughter began full-time schooling in first grade. She came home from school each day totally spent, and often spiraled into tantrums, tears, and yelling matches with me (I’m a superb yeller). She spent every ounce of her energy to behave well, learn well, and get along with others at school, and when she came home there was nothing left. I, too, have “melted down” over and over because I empty myself in my attempts to perform well, and to be “good.”

Papa God, Jesus, and Spirit are a whole new paradigm—a home where behavior is beside the point, a distraction from the real deal. Trying to become whole is a tiring pursuit. Knowing I’m already whole is energizing. Resting in righteousness creates a foundation for love. “The mystic’s quest is to be on the lookout for the hidden wholeness in everyone,”11 including me.

Endnotes:
1Father’s House, page 65
2Romans 6:6 TPT
3Father’s House, page 66
4The Whole Language, page 51
5The Whole Language, page 53
6Father’s House, Session Four video teaching and activation, pages 66-68
7Father’s House, page 71
8The Whole Language, page 54
9Father’s House, page 53
10Father’s House, page 50
11The Whole Language, page 55

Awe-full Gratitude

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I am over-aware that gratitude is a good idea. I’ve read books, heard the research, and mentored others toward gratitude, but I cannot find my own way to it. This leaves me feeling guilty and incompetent. But when I come out of shame, sometimes I see underlying issues feeding my tendency to be a pessimist, a cynic, a realist. One of these issues is survivor guilt. Every person alive today is susceptible to survivor guilt—a condition of persistent mental and emotional stress experienced by someone who has survived an incident in which others died.1 Our world is an incident in which others die. When I consider my life in comparison to most of the world population, saying I’m grateful somehow comes off as superior. Survival guilt leaves me just shy of getting the words “thank you” out of my mouth.

One morning I ponder this while watching birds out my window—hopping on the neighbor’s roof, sitting on telephone wires, strutting in the street, always fluttering here and there. And God whispers, everyone has the birds.

So then I suppose most everyone has sunrises and sunsets, trees and berry bushes, flowers, animals, stars. Even friendship, love, and the miracle of life. The lines of “lucky” and “unlucky” are not drawn between first-world and third-world countries. In all parts of the world we find sex slaves and starvation, abuse and death. There are Americans in solitary confinement, shut off from most blessings, and Americans confined by busyness, who for years haven’t stopped long enough to see a bird or a sunset. Loss or lack of freedom occurs on so many levels in so many places.

I know a subversive God, who “makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Matthew 5:45) Not only that, “When He died, He died once to break the power of sin for all.” (Romans 6:10, emphasis added)

If God is not selectively blessing and saving people, I wonder why the world looks like it does. Could it be that starvation, loneliness, and slavery are human constructs? If they are constructed by humans, can they be deconstructed by humans? Perhaps I have an incredible opportunity to participate in their reversal. If these tragedies—which distort or destroy the good things God has provided—came at the hands of broken humans, then as a healing human I may participate in restoration.

So where does this leave me?

There are no easy answers.

It seems that God provides for all. My greatest gifts are gifts God has given to everyone, not just to me or those like me. I may feel gratitude in the sacred moments when I notice the sky, see a friend’s deepest heart, or awake to the sound of singing birds, knowing that these pleasures are gifts to all.

At the same time, I may grieve for those who do not experience these blessings, who are locked away physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually—which is all of us, some of the time; and some of us, all the time. For this I cry, and so does God—God whose dream for us is a life characterized by love, friendship, and beauty.

This corporate sense of gratitude and grief gently moves me from cynicism to awe. I am in awe both at the beauty and the pain of the world. I am called to work for the good of the just and the unjust. I am invited to stare in wonder at the sun setting, and stare in wonder at a starving child, and allow both to wreck me. And for this I am grateful.

Endnotes:
1New Oxford American Dictionary

Emmanuel Mystery

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On school picture day I was at the private Christian school my girls attend, waiting with my youngest daughter to get her school picture taken. Friday chapel happened to be at that time, so I sat in on it. The guest speaker told the story of a family committed to Sabbath-keeping who was experiencing a plague of grasshoppers that would devour their fields. They stood to lose tens of thousands of dollars because the company spraying for grasshoppers refused to spray their field when asked to work around Sabbath hours. Amazingly, the power lines the length of their property were covered with solid rows of birds Sabbath morning, which descended and ate all the grasshoppers, saving their fields and fortunes.

Stories like this trouble me. Especially when we share them with elementary school children. What exactly are we trying to say? That if we trust God He will make sure everything works out in our favor? That we can pray and expect Him to take care of things in a way that preserves us? What about all the things that don’t work out? And why would God save a field of grain but not save little girls from brothels, or a wife from her husband’s affair, or a Christian from torture and death?

Often my reaction to my inability to see and understand the ways of God is to reduce God’s provision to a cosmic “everything will be alright in the end” platitude. Clearly He’s not making everything alright now, so He must mean that His care and protection are for the race as a whole over the arc of history, and not really for individuals. He must mean that my soul is safe – not my body, or my possessions, or my relationships. He has redeemed me and I trust in Him for my eternal provision, so at least if I am tortured to death, I know my soul is safe with Him. (Unfortunately, I happen to like my body and my life, and I don’t like the idea of being a pawn in a cosmic game.)

But this really feels like a cop-out to me. How can I possibly enjoy an intimate relationship with a Being who I believe doesn’t care for my well-being today? And how do I explain my own experience, that He does care for things as minute as my to-do list and whether I have time to take a shower? How do I explain the times He has provided perfectly the intimacy I was missing in my marriage, or the words to connect with my distraught child? The longer I respond to Him, the more I am convinced that He desires to be present in every moment of my day, every cell of my being, every thought, every need. But while He does provide for me often, He seems more interested in being with me than in fixing everything. This is puzzling to me, because I place high value on things being fixed. In fact, God and I have had some serious altercations about why He has not made me good yet.

So where does this leave me? Certainly I have not answered the questions that millions have been asking for thousands of years. Truthfully, I think God is beyond understanding. His goodness is beyond understanding and I’m certain He is a little crazy for loving me. And when I think about all the badness that is beyond understanding, I just don’t get it. I explain to my kids the story of Satan’s fall, our own fall, and the importance of humans having the power of choice even though it hurts us. But still the evil in the world is unsettling.

For me, in this season, there are two beliefs that comfort me when I think about pain. The first I have already touched on, and that is God’s desire – and His promise – to be with us. I want to be crystal clear that pain is real, and sometimes so deep and raw it threatens to destroy us. It cannot be spoken away, “faithed” away, hidden away. It is part of our experience, and we will feel it, and we will know that we cannot escape it. Sitting in pain, the most comforting, affirming, burden-lightening experience is to have someone sit in it with us. Most of us have a friend or friends who are quick to offer advice, solutions, and fixes for everything in our lives, and we quickly learn not to share struggles and pain with those people. The times I have felt the most safe in my own emotional skin are the times when I was allowed to be in pain, when my experience was affirmed and I knew someone was with me. This is a rare gift.

God is Emmanuel: God with us. He has an incredible capacity for feeling, and He enters into our feelings as an intimate friend. One of my favorite authors, Ty Gibson, calls Him omnipassionate. He is able to feel deeply with each of us. He is present in our pain. There is no pain outside of His desire to be in it with us. He sits with us in deep sorrows, and He is present in the passion of misplacing my phone for the seventh time today. I’m starting to wonder if this is actually better than Him fixing everything. It irritates me just a little to even say that, but my spirit says yes to a God who is with me just to be with me. A God who holds my pain with tenderness and affirmation, and holy presence. A God who is not immune to my pain, but actually feels it with me because He is one with me by His grace. A God who became human so He actually knows what it is like to feel pain as a human.

The second belief that comforts me is that God can somehow undo our pain in the future. If believing God’s presence in pain is hard for me to grasp, trying to understand His ability to work backwards and “undo” pain is even more of a mystery. In the book “The Great Divorce” by C.S. Lewis, one of the characters says, “That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.” I believe that God’s redemption is for all time. His sacrifice on the cross saved the first humans who breathed, just as it saves us. And if the cross can reach backwards and forwards, maybe heaven can, too.

Consider this passage from Ephesians: “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding. God has now revealed to us his mysterious will regarding Christ—which is to fulfill his own good plan. And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth. Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan.” (Eph. 1:4-11, NLT) 

I am ignorant, sinful, selfish and blind, observing an infinite God through a finite lens. My understanding is weak, but I am drawn by Holy Mystery – a God who is here right now, desiring the intimacy of knowing my own feelings as they emerge naked and timid from my heart; a God who desires to extend His love and grace, passion and power to us in order to bring all things and all times under the healing power of His love. We are not left empty handed, holding only a promise, and neither are we held in the moment with no anticipation of future healing. It’s just like Him to offer comfort right now, and hope for the future. 

Maybe I feel unsettled about the farmer and the grasshopper-eating birds because I’m focused on the wheat. I assume God is placing value on the wheat and the money, when in fact He is placing value on His child. He is present in the experience of the farmer. His presence could be birds, peace, wisdom, money. It doesn’t really matter how He shows up. It matters that He shows up. Because He loves you. Emmanuel Mystery.