Thoughts on suffering

I read it once, “anyone God uses significantly is always deeply wounded” (Manning 2002:48).

Twice, “… like most truly profound people, she was intimately familiar with pain” (Chole 2006:14).

A third time, “It is suffering that has the realest possibility to bear down and deliver grace” (Voskamp 2010:97).

Things that come in threes cause me to pay attention, wake up to the Voice, tune in to the message. Like scraps of paper floating my way in a bottle, this trinity of perspectives on pain communicate something vital.

They remind me that suffering is like a scourer, scrubbing out all that is self,  scraping out all decay, creating the capacity to contain all the fullness of God.

All the hard places are not random happenstance, wounds inflicted for the sake of it. They rid us of superficiality and easy answers. They give credibility to the consolation we offer to others. Because who really trusts words of comfort offered by someone who has never suffered themselves?

Only someone who has been there, who has drunk the dregs of our cup of pain, who has experienced the existential loneliness and alienation of the human condition, dares whisper the name of the Holy to our unspeakable distress. Only that witness is credible; only that love is believable (Manning 2002:44-45).

There is hope in this, the possibility of redemption, the small offering we are able to make of solidarity with those whose suffering is much deeper and farther than our own.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Pain also offers the choice to let go of foolishness and the illusion of control. We can stop trying to snatch the pen and write our own lives, instead trusting that “maybe you don’t want to change the story, because you don’t know what a different ending holds” (Voskamp 2010:21).

This is true wisdom. To know that God is wise, and I am not; to trust His perspective and seek it out more than my own; to let suffering complete its work in me, birthing depth, peace, patience, trust; to let pain empty me out so I can be full of grace.

This is the way to exchange bitter for beautiful.

Top Three Screaming Songs

Sometimes you just need to get it all out of your system with a good screaming session. Whenever I need some serious catharsis, I put on these three songs, in this order. The progression seems to help right me again somehow.

First up, Fight Inside, by Red.

(Ignore the awful video, just shut your eyes, crank up the volume and scream your lungs out).

Next, Torches Together, by mewithoutyou. I love the way this song resists a cut-and-dried interpretation. Scream out “we’ll be torches together” a few times, and, whatever it means to you, you can’t help feeling more positive about stuff.

The session concludes with Florence and the Machine‘s You Got the Love. I have blogged about my story with this song here. After you have yelled “you got the love I need to see me through” at the top of your voice repeatedly, you realize that the words coming out of your own mouth are powerful and true. There is more than enough love to see you through, if only you look for it in the right place…

By the end, you’ve been raw, honest and uplifted. In the process you’ve lost your voice, but found comfort that you’re not alone and courage to keep moving forward. I think it’s a fair trade.

How do you spell gratitude?

I’m reading a new book. I know. I always tell you that you should read whatever I’m reading, but this time I really mean it. One Thousand Gifts: a dare to live fully right where you are, by Ann Voskamp. Seriously.  You need to read it.

You can see my review over at Completely Devoted, but the essence of the book is gratitude. Gratitude as the way to see God and appreciate and enjoy him in all of life’s moments, right where we are, in exactly this place. Even the places and moments we didn’t choose or don’t want to be in.

It reminds me of the children I teach and how they are learning to read – we take what seems like an impossible word and we break it down: Well, you know the first sound.. What is the next sound? What do those two letters say together?

I wonder if gratitude is God’s way of teaching me to read the world. Well, you know the first thing to be thankful for… What else can you be thankful about? When you put those things together, what do they say? Sound them out…

They are all gifts. And seeing them transforms the ugly into the beautiful, the ordinary into the miraculous. And they sing to us from the rooftops that in the mystery and in the mundane, there is fresh mercy for us every morning and we are loved beyond all we can ask or imagine.

“From His fullness we have all received grace upon grace” John 1:16

Ann’s blog is at www.aholyexperience.com

You can also join a book club reading through One Thousand Gifts here.

What do you want me to do for you?

Two blind men were sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was going by, they shouted, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”

The crowd rebuked them and told them to be quiet, but they shouted all the louder, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”

Jesus stopped and called them. “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.

“Lord,” they answered, “we want our sight.”

Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him. Matthew 20: 29-34

What do you want me to do for you?

I want you to keep your promises. I don’t want empty words. I need flesh-and-blood, money-in-bank, food-on-table promises keeping.

Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me.

*****

Nights are long just now. I dream incessantly, vividly, in three-dimensional, high-definition, surround-sound  fear.  Panic, isolation, rejection, seep in, creep up through the walls of my subconscious. I wake without having fully slept, exhausted, outside and in.

*****

Are you good? Can you be trusted? Do you love me?

The same questions spill out of my heart again. And the one who knows the word to sustain the weary answers.

Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes, do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up? …and the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up? …Do you not yet understand? Mark 817-21

I remember that man does not live by bread alone and that what I really need is to see, to hear, to understand.

What do you want me to do for you?

Have mercy on me. Open my eyes. Show me where you are in all of this. Show me where you can be found in this moment.

And I realize that the promises are all yes, because they are all you. You are the Word, which does not come back empty or void, but achieves the purpose for which you sent it. Bread-on-table, treasure-provided, flesh-and-blood. All are you. All grace. All gifts. All given. And if you gave your own Son, how will you graciously not give us all things?

I look back on the day and see, “eat the mystery of the moment with trust.” The bank did not charge me; I was taken to dinner in a fancy French cafe; I was listened to and understood by a friend; I was not alone. Today, there was enough, more than enough, of what I needed.

*****

The light of morning wakes me from fear. And Jesus is there, preparing breakfast on the beach.