Struggling Through and Handling Pain

I feel like I don't even need to write the preface anymore, if you read this blog you already know, it's been a rough year, and spiritually a long confusing drought.

I've been frustrated and baffled to find how little help anyone actually has to offer when you're neck deep in pain and hopelessness. I'll readily admit, there are people who have had a worse year, or season, but for my life, this one has been a hard year. I'm one not usually averse to being open and vulnerable, but I have slowly found myself resistant to sharing with just anyone how this really feels.

The conversation will start with some apparent offensive honesty that I just don't feel that excited about God right now, or I'm wondering where He is, or that I just don't feel very loved by him right now. All too often this has been met with a but the glass is half-full yet sort of platitude. I started to justify the lack of feeling like anyone could meet me in this funk with sincerity by thinking, maybe I'm looking for answers in the wrong place. And maybe I am, but nonetheless it drew my attention to the fact that Christianity can leave a giant, gaping plot hole in the narrative of another. It is just plain useless to slap a happy-go-lucky "but God loves you" on someone when they feel trapped, alone, or abandoned.

We don't know what to do with pain. Plain and simple.

Pain and brokenness are difficult and gritty, and so many of us Christians don't know what to do when faced head on with the reality of another's pain. We want to cover it up with a disengaged sampling of possibilities, without acknowledging that the felt pain is legitimate. Dangerous words, believe me I know having grown up in a conservative home where the phrase "validating someone's feelings" was practically profanity.

I've never felt so overlooked as this year going through pain. I've never felt what it's like to struggle to believe what I did whole-heartedly before, and then be told I should have more quiet time. I've never had so many conversations about feeling frustrated and disoriented without an offer of prayer extended to me.

The other night, as I lay in my bed, crying, feeling utterly paralyzed at the amount of things I don't feel great or even good about in my life, I had one sad silver lining. For years now I've known the thing I want to pursue next in my life is practicing therapy. As I laid there and thought about how many unknowingly-lame responses I'd received to my pain, I thought that at the very least knowing dark times will make me better suited to sit with people in their pain; to acknowledge the very real weight of it in their lives.

Because the thing I've needed most is someone not to quickly silence me with their hope, but to hear the struggle I'm in and stand with me.

With some things more than others, it is an immense struggle to hope when you've been waiting a long while already. It's not helpful to be told there's another man out there for me, or that the lifting of my weird faith fog is just around the corner. It helps others feel better but I'm left with no hope and feeling as though the burden is too much for others to bear.

Now, it's true in part that I cannot seek for others to heal me, but in my frustration of loneliness, I realized I'm probably guilty of this very thing myself. And so as I take the challenge on myself to be aware of my responses to others' stories, I raise the challenge to whomever may read this. We must take care and be wise with our use of the hope we have. We must take care to bear with one another in burdens. We must take care to make time for the pain of the stories we ask to hear. 

The Truth About You

A conversation with a friend the other day stirred something that was latent in me, or dormant rather. I was giving this friend some compliments, explaining what I liked about him. He was perplexed at my mentioning areas that he felt insecure and thought he was lacking in. Frankly, it made him uncomfortable: "Weirds me out," he said. I explained that I get that a lot. I said we all have insecurities, and I like to combat that. "It's kind of my thing," I said.

Often our perceived flaws are all we see when we examine ourselves. Along with my slew of compliments, I told my friend that I try to only say what I mean. See, I want my word to be good, for those around me to know that while I may compliment easily, I say it because I want others to know themselves from a different vantage point. Looking in a mirror is only a replicated image of the real thing. When someone else knows your heart, studies your actions, hears you -- they notice what you only have time to fret about in your imagination. You only know how your body feels to move about in, how the words form in your mind, how your voice sounds from inside your own head. Others see you, understand you, and hear your words or song. They get to, that is.

People fascinate me. Granted, they also frustrate me, but...there are things I see in other people that amaze me, or give me joy or a warm feeling of pride in humanity. But those people likely don't see - let alone know it is in themselves.

I've learned through many hurts over the years, many poorly chosen words toward me and by me, that our words have immense power. People have written and spoken things to me, good and bad that will be, even if only in sentiment, etched in my mind forever. Power to tear down or build up...

"That's noble," my friend replied, maybe mockingly, who knows. The thing is I'm not passionate about it for the nobility, but for the psychology, for the nourishment of our souls. If I have the power to sow into another's life a truth of who they are, I can change the world.

Not just because it's the good thing to do, but because it's the powerful thing to do. And because it's the loving thing to do; speak the truth in love.

Stuck/Unstuck

It's approaching 8:30 on a Sunday night, and I've been trying to figure out what to do with myself and battling feeling emotional, for what reasons I don't even know.

I do know I feel stuck. I've felt stuck for a while in a few ways. I'm stuck on a relationship that just doesn't have any feasible way forward. I was stuck in a job that I saw nowhere to go - now I'm about to go somewhere but it's out the door. I'm stuck living at home, trying to make a dream happen that's derailed by said employment situation. I've felt stuck in my faith for a long time now, like trying to push a boulder when you're already exhausted kind of stuck. I'm more just sitting by the boulder, hoping it rolls for some reason. And not back on me.

Stuck.

I'm not much of an ambitious person, but I am pretty good at knowing if I set my mind to something I can accomplish it. Here and now, I feel all-around stuck. There are too many things to try to make happen at once, and they all affect one another, and the ones that affect me drain my motivation and confidence to pursue the others. Stuck and I can't even tip the first domino.

I'd felt fine about it all, until I realized I can't do nothing. I cannot just take another hit and not get back up...but I kind of want to lie on the mat for a while. Catch my breath. Unfortunately my life isn't a boxing metaphor and I don't really have that option. My sanity feels as though it depends on providence and my strength to keep fighting. And the faint flicker of hope that a day of feeling unstuck is on some future horizon of mine.

And maybe this is just today.

The Perspective of Pain

I wish I could say I saw it coming, but I didn't. That's about as much commentary as I'll lend to it...

I was told last week that due to budget cuts, my position will be dissolved. I was caught off guard, and yet I wasn't - because it's just been that kind of year. Everyone has such sincerity in their voice and their eyes when they ask how I'm doing. "Pretty okay, actually," I say.

This year started with ultimate heartbreak which brutally dragged itself, well and me, along. While viewed as a virtue, loyalty can be a fault. Call me crazy, (no one did, but they were thinking it,) I had a hard time letting go of the one I loved...still do. Anyway, I tell people: I already hit rock bottom this year. I hit it and sat down there for a bit. This -- it doesn't even surprise me, considering this year.

When you can look back at a string of months that you just didn't feel like yourself and during some of which you felt downright awful, a little baby curve ball can't really phase you. Heck, I have done this before. I thought back and there's all of two jobs on my resume list that I left by choice. Two. Out of nine. Layoffs. Dumb firings for accidents. Quitting then getting fired. Every time I've made ends meet, with pretty minimal favors and many dinners paid for by a few kind folks. I'm not at any risk of being homeless. The timing is pretty darn wretched, but it always shakes out.

I just have to overcome the overwhelming apathy toward the whole thing, and get myself through the next month between finishing out some time at the job where they've let me go, and trying to find whatever the next thing is.

This didn't break me, it didn't even make me cry. I guess the upside of surviving the worst pain of your life is perspective.

Our Nature to Struggle, Doubt, & Trust

**Disclaimer: This piece was written pre-deconstruction of religious beliefs and faith system. Many of these beliefs inform the sentiments of the writing and are not in alignment with my values. As this is a part of my journey and an extensive blog over years, I have chosen not to remove a majority of my posts written on faith. Please as a reader, take this into consideration and take what works for you, leave what does not. I also apologize for any harm my words from this past perspective may cause to any readers.**

Sometimes peace is a choice - a destination you set course toward. My therapist told me this week, "you were doing so good," as if to say "What happened?"

She told me I'd found the right things to put me on a good path before, and I just need to return to those things. I felt a little confused from an emotional mini-whirlwind the last week or so - what did I do before that to be on a good path, in a good place?

Today at church it hit me, or God did with the truth: I lost my footing in an instant. I think of when Peter is initially trusting Jesus, he successfully walks on water - for like a hot second. Then when he sees what's happening, he loses focus on the trust and starts to sink. See, I like Peter because God starts the church through him, but he's kind of a dink sometimes. A real putz. It just goes to show, you could have the real, in-the-flesh Jesus doing miracles and stuff in front of you, and still have the struggles. It's in our nature to doubt.

I didn't lose my footing from anything so impressive as walking on water, but it's been a long and tumultuous time of weirdness in my faith. And I realized just this week, I'm still having trouble feeling close to God not because He's far away, but because I went through so much pain that I don't understand and I don't know quite how to recover from. Sure, the appointment before last I went to my therapist and thought, I don't really need to be here, I'm pretty okay. I felt finally normal again.

The truth of it is, I am still struggling to trust God after I feel like He let me down. But He tells us in so many places - today in my heart - that we need to trust Him, not our own understanding.

However, I've found the church doesn't have much to offer people who are trying to trust God in the midst or the wake of great pain. Words don't really do much to that feeling in you that's pretty damn undeniable; kinda feels like, "my life hurts right now." You can't just throw a 'God loves you' at that, because those words only do so much against certain levels of pain. They're not unimportant, but they're not always helpful. There is something to be said for the steadiness of it, though. When you rejoice; set yourself back on the facts of God's loving-kindness and trustworthiness, even if that feels hollow.

So this morning as my heart swelled in worship, thinking of the places in the lives of my friends that I trust God to work, the weight of my own situation crept in. And in His gentleness, He didn't give me any answers, but He reminded me that I can only be satisfied in Him. He reminded me that I cannot be at peace without trusting in His loving-kindness - and that that is a choice. I can't make sense out of loving someone deeply and being parted from them for reasons that my big God should be able to handle, but I can move forward in trust. That trust may feel weak, and the peace may feel weary, but it's less weak and weary than waiting for answers without Him. Because I think that longing for God is in our nature, too.

A year ago today

I didn't know it at the time, but it was a year ago today that it all started to become confusing. I came back to a relationship believing God explicitly led me there, the possibility and purpose of which I no longer expect to ever understand. I think I've let go of that because there isn't the same pain to it. It's got the dulling ache of a once broken bone, or the tenderness of a scarred wound. I've now come to terms with the fact that I survived the feeling I was certain and fearful would break me. I don't love it, but it is a part of my story now: having loved deeply and lost painfully.

A year ago I wasn't thinking much about the risk of all the pain that inevitably made its temporary home in my life. I'd spent so long regretting taking that step back into the relationship, but I don't anymore. Cliche as it sounds, to love was worth it, the risk of my very life. I learned afresh that in my darkest valleys, still I am not alone. I learned that in my lowest weakness, there is a strength that endures which sustains me – it's my own.

Still I may - or likely will, in my humanness - forget such impacting lessons. Time will continue to press on, and things like anniversaries of dates will come to remind me, putting that weird little flutter of bittersweet remembrance in my heart. I'll otherwise remember today as the day I watched baseball with someone I loved.

Might

Occasionally you might cross paths with someone whom you can appreciate and whom you feel as though you know, because their heart has been broken and their life rifled through by pain. You might stop at that crossroads of your meeting and revel in the brief, sweet company of a fellow enduring soul. And Traveler, that might be it.