Suffering in the Spirit – Within the Wilderness
We experience suffering in the mind, body and soul. We need to allow ourselves to acknowledge the deep wrestling of our spirit in our healing. The dark nights in agony and tears, praying on our knees- sometimes not even sure what we are really asking. The deep ache in our heart that splits our chest. The emptiness when it feels like the suffering will never end or the weight will never lighten. The rage as someone simplifies hurt with words like, “Well heaven just needed another angel”, “God never gives us more than we can handle”, “It’s God’s will,” or perhaps “God surely allowed this to happen to get your attention/bring you to Him.” The wilderness can get dark.
I think of Job. His friends start off strong and sit with him in lament for 7 days… until they cannot sit in the discomfort any longer. Then they start trying to find ‘spiritual’ answers to try to push him along and make sense of what has happened. They turn to judgement, as so many of us do today, to try to make sense of things or distance ourselves from pain we hope to never endure. Poor Job. His family and his wealth are gone, his body is in agony with sores, and now his friends can’t witness this wilderness experience any longer without trying to take control.
I also think of David. Many sufferers have this written on their hearts, whether they have read the passage or not.
“How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?… Give light to my eyes or I will sleep in death…”
Desperate cries from the depths of the wilderness. They are not inspiring. They are real.
So often we trust Jesus with our lives, and in our human-ness we want answers:
- Why, Lord?
- How long?
- When will you answer me?
- Why didn’t you stop it?
- Where were you?
- Where is the healing that I’ve prayed for?
- What was the point?
- Will it ever get better?
- Where are you now?
- What did I do to cause this?
The dangers we encounter in suffering along with our faith is not necessarily our questions but the contingencies we may place on whether or not we receive an answer. In the inhospitable places of our journey, it can be tempting to walk away from Jesus because we just cannot fathom how His character fits with the facts of our circumstance.
It is also risky for others to rush in with answers. I sit with many people in their questions, and quite naturally I have some, too. In humility I must admit to them and myself that I cannot begin to know why their story is as it is or how it all plays out. I have to cope with my own discomfort without heaping more weight onto them.
Many have carried hurt for such a long time and somewhere in their healing they must have space to encounter spiritual wrestling. Many must lament to God the neglect and abuse they’ve experienced. The injustice they’ve endured. The things they have seen and survived. The thorn in their side they continue to bare. There must be sacred space for the raw cries before God as we grapple with brokenness.
Often, I find it is not about establishing answers but grasping Jesus in the midst of the questions. There’s comfort in yearning for Him as we hurt, even when we may be confused or angry with Him. When the voices around you just do not understand, you will recognize His gentle presence has been with you- He gets it and no matter how hard it gets He will not leave you.
In my season of grief, I strained with suffering in my emotions and my body. I felt desperate to release the ache in my soul. I read a book called, “Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy” which taught me the practice and true meaning of lament. I allowed myself to sit in the lament- I began to crave it. I would cry out to God, complain to Him, make requests of Him, and ultimately acknowledge Him. In this journey I have learned silence is a soul killer, and so in trust I was noisy with God. As I tired myself out in those times, I’d lay in stillness in His presence. In the safest places of the wilderness, in His presence, Jesus would draw my awareness to my areas of sin, allowing me to explore my own areas of weakness. I chose to drop an anchor, eventually, at the understanding that God’s goodness does not change based on my circumstances. Through this, slowly my soul came back to life in its own way. My mind and body took much longer and required their own paths.
“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
Lamentations 3: 21-23
We must recognize that our primary role is not to find answers for those who suffer. We are to be present and prayerful in the pit. We must trust God is able to work in spaces we cannot comprehend. In retrospect, the wilderness is a sacred space of transformation; a precious place of closeness with God.
Within my story, the time of fully immersed grief felt like an endless, dark forest. After losing my son and the cause only able to be explained as a ‘freak accident’, and two additional pregnancy losses, my heart began to believe a devastating lie: “God has removed His hand from me.” It became the filter I was processing my circumstances through. My prayers felt like plagues and I feared praying for others… “What if they die, too?” I sat in the pews, usually with warm tears rolling down my cheeks continuously. I was so angry, confused and hopeless. I prayed for favor to somehow return to me. All of this was happening while I also knew the truth of God’s Word; his love & his character. I knew the science that my brain was trying to make sense of what just was not going to make sense. I knew my body was carrying so much trauma, while I shifted back and forth between numb and terrified. That knowledge didn’t change that I was walking this path. I am forever different.
I wish I could tell you the steps of my coming-to-the-surface from drowning. They were uniquely mine in relationship with Jesus but included many of the things I explain in these articles. Grief does not end, but we learn to live with it. The lie eventually lost its grip- but it was a rough battle. I will never stop missing my son and his siblings in heaven. The story eventually has integrated into my overall story and what God is doing in my life. Along the way, I had a conversation with a trusted pastor. Through his own story he said something I was shocked to agree with: “Through it all, in losing it all, I strangely somehow find myself not wanting to trade my lessons and intimacy with God in for a different story.” I could feel myself nodding, while also aware that the me from that delivery room strongly protested. The wilderness and the trek through it transformed me.
There’s a song lyric that says, “I’m thankful for the scars because without them I wouldn’t know your heart; And I know they’ll always tell of who you are, so forever I am thankful for the scars.” I find myself humming it often.
I’m not prescribing my view to you. All I am simply saying is that my story did not end in the wilderness, and I stumbled and fought through in some not-so-pretty ways. I had to work with my soul and the profound wound it bore. Through my wounds, I allow God’s love and light to shine through. It often still stings.
As you digest these words, I pray that you feel seen. I hope you know that in whatever your story holds, it’s okay to need to wrestle and it’s okay that it’s not pretty. It is okay that different areas heal at different rates. I hope you can hear an alternative voice from those that maybe have unintentionally wounded you further, maybe leading you to shut down and pull away from Jesus. You are in the wilderness, but you are not alone. Jesus is in the pit with you. While you may feel broken and fragile, He is not. He can handle your mess and He can handle you in the mess.
