When bad things happen, it is easy for us to feel as if God has abandoned us or is punishing us, even though it is clear good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. We sometimes start to feel guilty or as if we need to change course when bad things happen since we think if we are “doing things right,” we should be rewarded! Yet the sun rises on the evil and the good and rain falls on the righteous and unrighteous. Basically, it’s a crapshoot. The fact that bad things are happening to you does not necessarily mean you have done something wrong or you are headed in the wrong direction. It could, but sometimes it means you’re headed in the right direction. I often tell people (usually when they are setting a boundary or trying on some new behavior), “If it’s difficult, you know you’re doing it right!” People don’t usually like that. 🙂
Tag: pain
Growth and Death
It seems like life is equal parts death and growth. You cannot have one without the other – unbounded growth not pruned back by a little death will become unruly and unmanageable. At the same time, you will not always be moving backwards (experiencing death and loss). There will be a time to burst forth in growth. Don’t be afraid of either. You should learn to make friends with your loss and pain because they have so much to teach you. What has taught you more than your pain? At the same time, do not be wary of growth and success. You should be wise enough to realize you can lose at any time, but you do not need to live in fear of these losses or when they will reemerge. The losses only serve to shed what is not needed and let you return to a phase of growth and thriving. It is all the gift of life.
Connecting with Our Stories
It is healthy for us to be connected to and to have a sense of ourselves in our own stories. This means we have “at hand” everything, good and bad, that has happened in our lives in the past and present and we can see ourselves moving into the future with a coherent sense of who we are. This is another way of being “present”.
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
Rest Is Coming
It is also true that rest awaits. I believe C.S. Lewis said somewhere that man has the capacity to endure suffering only as long as he has to – that once the suffering has ended, he will have the experience that he could not have possibly endured one minute more. This is the other thing that makes our suffering bearable: we know there is respite when it is finished. This day will end at some point and you will be able to sleep. This week will end in a weekend. This season of life will eventually pass. Some day, the suffering will abate. At the end of it all, there will be rest with a certain finality.
Freedom In Suffering
I have long been fascinated by and drawn to stories of people who have suffered greatly and yet live free. That’s why my favorite movie is The Shawshank Redemption. I heard once that Nelson Mandela was able to find a sublime level of peace in his soul while imprisoned. You have probably heard similar stories. I have even wished suffering upon myself at times because in suffering, we learn who we truly are and what really matters in life bubbles to the surface. Weird, right?
Acceptance
I wonder what the world would be like if we did not work so hard to avoid everything. So much in our lives exists to help deaden our senses: not only drugs and drink, but electronics and countless other diversions. If we really felt everything there is to feel, I wonder if we would fall apart. The world seems like it would drastically change if we just accepted and encountered the pain of our circumstances head on, as it is. But we do not. We anesthetize in order to avoid feeling too much.
Sustained Ecstasy
Someone gave me this bit of wisdom once: she said, “the pain tells me that I am alive.” She was battling cancer and all the pain and agony that go along with that, and she stopped taking her pain medication almost altogether. She is a brave soul. She said when the meds covered all of the pain, she would wake up and not know if she was alive or dead. Her illness had progressed to a point where she could go any time, and she didn’t want to be in a drug-induced stupor. She wanted to be alive and endure everything that goes along with that.