the journey through pain pt. 3: two steps back two steps forward

Last Thursday at missional community we talked about the parables of the hidden treasure and the pearl. Here it is:

‘“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field.

“Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant on the lookout for choice pearls. When he discovered a pearl of great value, he sold everything he owned and bought it!’

-- Matthew 13:44-46

Among other things we were examining what the cost is to follow Jesus, and how ultimately we have to be willing to sacrifice everything for living in his story. This is a hard negotiation, because on the one hand we have the things we want, the dreams we’ve been given, things that aren’t necessarily bad, but on the other hand we know and are promised that life inside his story will make us the happiest. In both of the stories there is a period where the man and the merchant leave what they have found and go back to their old life. They only go back to sell everything, but they still have to go back. They negotiate the terms and sell every last thing. Sometimes I think in a life of following Christ we think we’ve given everything up to him, but then we discover something we forgot, or neglected. I think we will always be finding these things that we need to let go of.

I’ve had these stories on my heart the last few days because there are many things I haven’t sold yet. I’m not going to say that the pain of getting broken up with was what God wanted, or that that relationship was only given to me so that he could teach me things when he took it away. I’m not sure he works like that, I’m not really sure of how He works at all, but I know he does. In losing this relationship, oddly enough I was taken back to issues I thought I’d gotten over. It makes me think, in an estate sale, which is what these men had to do, you have to sell everything. You’ve even got to sell all of that junk in the basement that is unusable, outdated or broken. So I’ve been realizing that I haven’t sold this one piece of junk in my basement.

I’m the kind of person who is cognitive enough to live out of the knowledge of the love of God, this allows me to hold on to blame for years without feeling his forgiveness. This kind of living neglects the heart knowledge, the feeling loved, and genuinely feeling forgiven. I’ve been carrying this blame from a previous relationship. I haven’t let him forgive me. I haven’t sold that. Like Ben Myers said last Sunday at the Gathering Network “everything flows out of identity.” If we aren’t confident in our identity in him, our obedience isn’t out of love but duty, and our actions, however sincere, to make wrong things right aren’t urgent but obligatory. In our stories there are things we want to happen, and will happen, but to be ready there are these little places of pause, of waiting, of resting in who we are in Jesus, so that we can know how to be what we will become. So rest.

the journey through pain pt. 2: listening to good stories

So we know that we need to listen to his story, the story he's been telling since the dawn of time. Sometimes it's hard to listen, to see past the bend in the road of our own story. We're headed down a path and it's come to a dead end, or we're in the middle of a hairpin turn and can only imagine where we are going next. During these times we take it on faith that because he tells good stories he will continue to tell a good story in our life. We can’t stand it when we can’t see what’s next, it drives us nuts, especially when we thought we had a handle on things.

Sometimes when we are in the middle of a season of dryness we see our friends that are happy and we get jealous. I know I am guilty of this and have even expressed my resentment to them at times. What I’m trying to do, instead, is to look at their stories as evidence of his goodness, instead of a picture of something I don’t have. My friends just got engaged yesterday and it's such a good story. I celebrate it and remind myself that he has that for me too. Or even if he doesn’t have marriage for me, what he does have will be just as good as the happiness he’s given them.

We also need to feed ourselves with the beauty of the gospel story. Remind ourselves that the conquerer of death is madly in love with us. Remind ourselves of that lonely Sabbath day the disciples must’ve spent shut up somewhere miserable with despair. Their Lord, the person they had dropped everything for had met a bloody horrific death right before them. They must’ve asked how this could fit into the Kingdom. What possible purpose could God have for killing his son. What about the whole bringing his kingdom to earth, how could he do that if he was dead. If he had just been killed, was he even who he said he was? Theres no way they could’ve seen past that moment, and even if they’d been allowed to, they wouldn’t have understood. Looking back, that day of mourning for their Lord was a small price to pay. I think that’s how he tells our stories. I try to think of this time as a long Sabbath day, where nothing makes sense, where no possible series of explanations will make my feelings seem okay. But comfort is here because the day before Easter was a day of mourning, and it’s darkest just before dawn. He is a master author and he knows what he’s doing. If we allow him to he will write us the most beautiful stories.

the journey through pain pt. 1

Let me preface this with the fact that the relationship I’ve been in for the past six months was not at a standard six month point. To me, anyway, it was very serious, I mean making big plans serious. That said, about a week ago my girlfriend broke up with me, it was rather sudden, but in hindsight makes sense. There are a lot of things going on in her life right now and this entry isn’t about the break up. It’s about the pain.

I don’t think anyone has a very good practice of dealing with pain. Some of us may understand better how to mentally relate to deep pain. Explanations for pain, reasons to push on through pain. As my good friend keeps telling me, “It gets better, but that consolation doesn’t mean anything until you don’t need it anymore.” The pain doesn’t cease until it’s done its work on you, and as long as you resist it, it will not cease. The more you try to escape, the harder it stares you in the face. For example during a night with my friends talking about the difficulties of the break up, a night spent dwelling on it, it eases up, I actually relax for the first time in three days. A few days later I get pretty drunk, ride around westport alone on my bike smoking cigarettes, and it hurts more than ever. The more you run away the faster the thing chases you.

There is a mewithoutYou song that begins “the cure for pain, is in the pain, so it’s there that you’ll find me.” This rings true. So do I just sit in it, dwell on it, wait for it to pass? Merely holding it close only seems to intensify and refresh the injury, sending us back to the initial reaction of denial, or pushing us further under into the despair of surrender. Surrender to the story that this is the end. That none of our dreams will come true, that what I had was the best thing ever and nothing will ever be as good. Merely remaining in the pain will not bring about healing. Later in the song it says “let yourself...dissolve into the Love who revealed himself quietly to me.” Let yourself.

Just earlier today my incredibly wise friend reminded me that it’s not easy to let God meet you in the pain, but that it’s a fight. You have to fight the thousands of stories that are railing against you. The story that she doesn’t want you because she saw that darkness in you, and just like the last girl she ran. The story that this is the beginning of an unbroken line of heartbreak. The story that not only have you not changed after so many attempts, but that you can’t, that there is something unfixable deep inside you and no one can love it. All of these stories are not true, they are lies from the enemy. These are the things you have to fight against. You have to fight the cynicism that says that either you're not worth it, or God isn’t good enough to give you happiness.

Healing isn’t passive, we must participate or we will never be well. We must enter the healing like a patient in a hospital educating themselves about their illness and pushing themselves through grueling physical therapy workouts so that they will walk again. If a physical injury or disease is ignored it will worsen until it destroys you. Emotional pain is just like physical pain, steps must be taken and there is much work to be done.

At the end of the work day today I walked outside and just as I opened the door it started to rain. As I sat there and watched the rain cover the pavement bit by tiny bit. The storm signified something to me. This weather that God made was not benign, it was terrifying, it was thunder cracking and water pouring down from heaven. He was showing me a different side of him, a side that isn’t safe. Showing me that when he works sometimes shit happens. Sometimes he lets us get hurt. He’s there. He will pick us up. He won’t always take us back in the direction we thought we were going. Our hearts will be broken. He will heal us, but we must listen to his story, not ours, not cultures, His.

And here tonight while the stars are blacking out

with every hope and dream I’ve ever had in doubt

I’ve spent ten years trying to sing these doubts away

But the water keeps on falling from my eyes

And heaven knows I tried to find a cure for the pain

Oh my lord to suffer like you do

It would be a lie to run away

--Jon Foreman “The Cure for Pain”