A truth buried deeper than the pain will allow

Healing is a thing that is either a pipedream or a laugh for many.  There is much more to be gained in drinking or drugging the pain away.  Except the pain won’t go away by denying it.

The truth is buried beneath that seemingly impenetrable veneer of pain that lingers over it.

The truth will set us free if only we could get to it.  But the pain seems the more immediate pressure point, and the pain requires an anaesthetic.  Little wonder there are moments of drunken confession, where the truth not only leaks out, it comes out in a flurry of tears of raging actions.

The journey of reaching the truth each of us embodies as central to who we are is always past the pain that wants to thwart our descent.

Pain causes us to continue to go around it, under it, over it, but never through it.  To get to the truth that lingers tantalisingly below the pain is to bear it.  To bear its truth.

When we face that pain, in honouring the truth of our pain, we find THAT there, right there, is the golden key into Truth’s door itself.

I’m not talking living purgatory.  I’m not thinking this process of visiting pain is something that is arduous or hellish, on the contrary it’s something that always seems bigger and harder and more impossible than it ends up being.  Perhaps we go there with a loyal listening friend, or with a mentor, a pastor or counsellor... if you have trauma to deal with—and you’d not be alone—go to someone who is trained and skilled in the area.  Go to someone appropriate for YOUR needs.  And to have a team of people in our healing is good.

Truth is always below the pain, but as soon as we meet the pain, we do so in truth and we find that when truth and pain merge, the truth begins to free us of the power in the pain.

Truth is nothing to be afraid of because facing the truth always takes courage and our confidence increases when we’ve been courageous.

Truth is buried only so far as the pain hides it, yet as the pain is faced, the truth is seen and encountered, and it frees us from those bonds of pain.

Life invites us ever on the journey of healing so that our pain won’t block us from the vital truth that frees us to finally BE who we are.  That truth we all need to face is more beautiful than any of us can contemplate—it’s positive, safe, hope-filled, full of grace.

But the pain sullies the truth and makes our process of getting to the truth harder than it needs to be.  Yet, in simply facing that pain in whatever way seems safe IS facing the truth, and truth’s door begins to open.

In being freer of pain, we have less need and maybe no need of all of anaesthetic; we go on in facing truth, and there’s no truth that conquers us anymore with pain.

Whatever it is, I hope this helps.

Conflict’s first step – seek the best for all

If there’s one safe assumption to make in a social media thread these days it’s that misunderstandings and divergences will lead to conflict and usually the key board warrior emerges in the protagonists.  But when we’re face to face, we’re usually a little more circumspect.

There is conflict in our world and so much of it in our lives.  In fact, there isn’t a week that goes by where there isn’t some person either upsetting us or other people upset by us.  So often conflicts occur in a flash and we could not have seen it coming.

There are so many factors driving why we even get into conflict: stress, desires, pressures, habits we struggle with in others, trigger words and turns of phrase, several unconscious biases, just to name a few.

How do we reconcile conflict so it doesn’t get out of hand where we end up in court or fisticuffs or the end of the relationship?

One thing I’ve learned—through much application, but also the hard way through not applying it—is there is a huge amount of value in doing two things at the same time: 1) address the conflict directly whilst also 2) expressing empathy for the other person in their situation.

This approach disarms people—especially when they’re thinking we’re coming to attack.  But as we address the person, empathising genuinely for how they’re feeling, we demonstrate integrity and care.

Conflict’s first step is seeking the best for all.  The irony of doing this is when we put others first, even though we’re momentarily disregarding our own needs, our needs are more than met in the longer run—because we’re seen as a unifier and someone who is mature enough to put others first.

It’s such a rare quality these days, but it’s ever appreciated by all when all is said and done.

I say when all is said and done because putting others first takes faith.  It involves risking it won’t backfire on us.  But think of it this way, if people don’t appreciate the empathy and grace we extend, it’s no loss to us.  Our behaviour is full of integrity; theirs?  Don’t worry about theirs.  If their conscience isn’t piqued that’s no fault of anyone but themselves.

BUT it’s not for us to get upset over other people’s behaviour over which we have no control.

Think of how much of a temptation it is to control others.  It’s why we get upset when people behave abysmally.  But if we resolve to accept that we can’t always influence others, and that we certainly can’t control their behaviour, we remove the risk of getting upset.

We lower our expectations of others.  We’re not surprised when they get upset with us.  And when we’re not surprised, we’re better equipped to manage the moment, because each conflict needs a semblance of reason, and it only takes one to start injecting hope where things can easily boil over.

Conflict’s first step is seeking the best for all, and in being the pacifier, the calm voice, the voice of reason, the peacemaker, we offer hope of unity where division threatens to disrupt the peace.

Robert Louis Stevenson said this:

“Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm.”

For such a quiet mind we’re to strive.  Rather than be influenced and controlled for our response through others’ behaviour, knowing there’s a better way, we nurture those responses.

The thing we learn most of all when we’re not intimidated by others is how easy it is to respect everyone, because respecting everyone is a reflection on us, and not on whether others are worthy of the respect we bestow them.

Those who respect everyone show a character trait of a mastery of emotional intelligence.  Those who are least worthy of respect are most to be won over through our respect of them—and even if they aren’t it’s a reflection on them and the grace we extend is a positive reflection on us.  And in doing this, we do no further harm, and others see the power for peace we hold.

Quiet minds have the command of peace over the waves that would rock our relationships.

Empathy in the presence of trauma and grief

There is so much trauma on display these days with so many people exhausted and overwhelmed in many ways.  What everyone needs who’s stretched to capacity is the simple space of empathy.

Paradoxically the overwhelm involved in traumatic stress is the exact thing that teaches us the importance of empathy.  When we’re bearing the strain of overwhelming stress, it’s then that we see the implicit value of empathy—because it’s US that needs it.

Nothing sheets home the reality of what other people 
need more than the reality of what we need.

Sensing what another person needs 
and wanting to help them is empathy.

Having experienced such pain that feels like it’s ripping our heart out, which is such a telling experience it converts us regarding what pain truly feels like, and it causes us to be converted to empathy if we otherwise weren’t already.

The experience of overwhelming pain changes us in empathy for the rest of our lives.  If there’s a good thing that comes from it, it’s that our heart’s been softened compassionately for those who suffer now and into the future.  The eyes of our heart are truly opened, and we see more like how God sees.

Experiencing empathy in the presence of trauma and grief is the offer of hope if only we’re not floored by the experience.  This is helped all the more when we experience the empathy of another person’s compassionate presence in our trauma.

Empathy is what we need in the grief that overwhelms us, and this is the actual care that we’ll pay forward.  Indeed, the comfort we receive when we so desperately need it we feel compelled to offer to others, and it’s not always when we’re recovered that we do this.  Often, we try out our care amid the storm, and sometimes we experience the power of care right there in the torrent of overwhelm.

It’s true that at the very time we’re most pressed with grief and disabled by traumatic stress is also the moment that teaches us empathy and motivates us to exercise this precious care.

Isn’t that truly a magnificent compensation for the suffering that otherwise threatens to swallow us whole in despair?

It reminds me of the golden truth and absolute wisdom in this quote by Billy Graham singer, Wintley Phipps:

“It is in the quiet crucible of your personal private sufferings, that your noblest dreams are born, and God’s greatest gifts are given, in compensation for what you’ve been through.”

Can you see how being broken by grief and trauma is only the beginning, and that the normal human response in the presence of care is the resilience that redeems those losses through a response that grows us up at the same time?

“In the presence of care” is the operative statement, and if a person doesn’t receive such care, they must give themselves that care, or otherwise receive that care from God.

The empathy that suffering connects us with is the compassion that will get us through.  This empathy is the care that sees the truth of how unmistakably lamentable the reality really is—without denying the pain, condemning oneself or feeling condemned (which is cosmic unfairness), or any other response that doesn’t honour the truth.

The truth of the pain must be honoured, and that is empathy, and empathy can heal in and of itself.  It is the redemptive power of God.

By their fruit you will know them

One of the best relational tests is history.  We can predict future behaviour by looking at past behaviour.  This is not to say that people don’t or cannot change.  But it does help us with our expectations.

I get the sentiment that “I am not my past.”  I’ve got a past.  Most of us reading this have.  There’s been a growing up.  For those who have transcended their past to a great degree, people in our lives attest to the changes in us wrought through transformation.  Positive change gives us all something to be thankful for.

Yet there are people who doggedly insist upon entitlement and exploitation no matter how much their lives attest to the fact that those things serve nobody, not least themselves.  (Selfishness is a curse upon not only those on the receiving end.  Selfish people are rarely contented people.)

Indeed, entitlement and exploitation, that obvious aggression, do trauma.  Don’t doubt it.

“By their fruit you will know them,” says Jesus in Matthew 7:16/20.  He continues the thought with this pressing rhetorical question: “Does one pick grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?”[1]  Again, in Matthew 7:6 Jesus is heard to say, “Don’t throw your pearls to pigs.”

Poignantly, the bad cannot produce the good, and the good does not produce bad.

Out of the mouth comes what’s in the heart (Matthew 12:34).  The heart is the seed, and what comes out in behaviour is the fruit.  One grows out of the other.  The heart, the source; the behaviour, the effect.  A good heart repents of something bad that comes from their behaviour.  But a bad heart produces aggression and feels justified, with no apology offered, and may issue schadenfreude and disdain to boot.

The character of those who’ve shown their colours in the past can be expected to be repeated.  With no intent to change, with no heart change, we can only imagine what that means.  More of the same.

One of the ways we get opportunities 
to love people is by the truth.

None of us forces another how to behave.  We all have our choice.  There ought to be no compulsion in any of us to make allowances again and again and again for people—because nobody learns another way when they’re enabled to continue a way without consequence.

It’s a loving thing to allow people the consequences of their actions, with firm gentleness, without judgement, without rescuing them.  And to allow people to make their choice is the acceptance that comes from maturity—to live and let live.

By enabling poor attitudes and behaviour in letting it go again and again and always making allowances, we stall opportunities for people who might otherwise choose to change.  We don’t know if a person won’t change unless we give them the opportunity.

This is not putting the onus on the person potentially being manipulated, because sometimes it’s a fine line between submitting when we shouldn’t and not reacting when abuse is involved.

The most loving thing about giving someone an opportunity to change is it invites them into a larger version of themselves—to think about others for a change.  But it requires a letting go of the enabling behaviours empaths are apt to slip into.

It takes strength a day at a time to hold the line and keep up the firm-though-maturely-applied tough love—remember, it is love after all when enabling otherwise forestalls their development.

There are those of course who are belligerent at your expense and at those you care for.

They will not change because they either cannot change, or they entrenched in being stubbornly entitled to do as they please.  They exist, when all is said and done, for their own ends.  You’re not going to help such a person.  They’re not a relationships type of person, they’re an individual.  In workplaces with this type, whatever position they hold, they’re not a team player.

By their fruit, 
or what comes out of their lives, 
you will know them.

---

[1] The full passage is related to false prophets: “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. ¹⁶ By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? ¹⁷ Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. ¹⁸ A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. ¹⁹ Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰ Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.”

 

The grace of lament that ultimately gets you through grief

Have you ever thought to yourself, “I know there’s something more to life; a secret I’m not yet living”?  There’s a part of us that’s mystified by truth we don’t yet have.

Somehow, in our heart of hearts, often deeper than we’re consciously aware, we search and clamour and explore, we hold out hope, we wonder why, the potential of life ever sitting slightly beyond us, on the horizon, always just out of our grasp.

God, Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “has set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”  Yet, grief invites lament, and lament unveils these recondite mysteries.

Curiosity for extracting the enigmas of life is 
never more piqued than when we suffer.

When we suffer, like when our tongue clings to the roof of our mouths, or we soak our bed in tears, or we live estranged to a life we long to return to but can’t, we’re desperate to touch comfort.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:4 that, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”  The desperation we experience for having left our comfort zone forces us into a mode of growth that further entreats comfort.  Inevitably we find it.  By faith alone.

Suffering gives us rectitude and it also quashes our pride:

“The language of lament is the language of humility.”
― Soong-Chan Rah, Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times

Humility is a truly great and wise strength that comes into its own in absolute weakness.  People aren’t usually humble unless they’ve been humbled, so we can see how being in a place of lament brings us into a place of connection with God.

“You can lament over what could have been, or you can do something bold; use that energy to create an enviable future.  It is up to you.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Being Bold: Quotes, Poetry, & Motivations for Every Day of the Year

No matter what our past is, we can move forward in complete neglect of it and make a new start.  It’s clear that the past does not hold us back on any account.  Regret has a great impact on so many of our lives, but just as easily we can walk forward with our life making the best of what is.

Grief unveils regret.  And when regret gets too large and unbearable, we’re cajoled to look for a different way, so we strive forward.  Then we transcend regret.

“When brokenness becomes your life, lament helps you turn to God.  It lifts your head and turns your tear-filled eyes toward the only hope you have: God’s grace.”
― Mark Vroegop, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament

God’s grace is perennially there, yet we only truly discover it when we need it, usually in suffering and the lament that attempts to make sense of the truth we find ourselves in.  The grace of God is truly a very misunderstood thing.  Not only is it a source of cosmic forgiveness, it’s also a hidden power for strength to be found in our most vulnerable weakness.  And it’s not a ‘strong’ strength, but an altogether different ‘power’, a strength you receive when you’re honestly weak.

“Lament will not allow us to revert to easy answers.  There is no triumphalistic and exceptionalistic narrative of the American church that can cover up justice.  There are no easy answers to unabated suffering.  Lament continues.”
― Soong-Chan Rah, Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times

Precisely why lament works, answers are hardly the point.  The true answer is beyond answers that interest the human mind.  The heart of lament is enthralled in being, and in being is the victory, because in being we cannot be overcome.  Lament will sit faithfully with us as we face the pain of the truth that we’re in, yet with God:

“Prayerful lament is better than silence.  However, I’ve found that many people are afraid of lament.  They find it too honest, too open, or too risky.  But there’s something far worse: silent despair.  Giving God the silent treatment is the ultimate manifestation of unbelief.  Despair lives under the hopeless resignation that God doesn’t care, he doesn’t hear, and nothing is ever going to change.  People who believe this stop praying, they give up.  This silence is a soul killer.”
― Mark Vroegop, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament

Better than the inactivity of a silence which is void of God, lament is the practice of true faith because it carries the struggle to the doorstep of God.  “Too honest, too open, or too risky.”  Of course!  Without faith that expects God to show up, we stand adrift from the only thing that can help us: God’s Presence.  The risk is the faith.  Honesty is a risk, so is openness.  There is nothing to lose in honest lament.  But only when we believe God is already there with us in it, and God is.

Here to finish is the truth of life.  

“I didn’t want normal until I didn’t have it anymore.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Lament: The Faerie Queen’s Deception

Normal can seem lamentable until normal is ripped from our grasp.  Yet, lament potentially teaches us to be grateful for what we have.  From loss there’s the possibility that we might begin to be grateful for the smallest things that remain, and indeed from the surprising things that come into our possession from mourning.  From grief there is an eventual thankfulness, that is forged in the faith it takes to keep the faith.

Depressed and stuck feeling misunderstood and guilty?

Depression is often the classical biochemical imbalance, often brought on by hardship or incredibly difficult circumstances, and unfair thoughts, stories, and attributions about oneself.  It’s the perfect storm of these elements, and more, that collide and collude to bring us to our knees in a bout of mental illness.

One of the key themes of such a personal crisis of vulnerability is being caught between feeling misunderstood and feeling guilty—defending ourselves to set the record straight or withdrawing when we’re feeling misunderstood, and later apologising (out of guilt) or feeling shame for having ‘overreacted’.

When we’re in a better place of mental health, feeling misunderstood isn’t quite as keenly felt, or we don’t sweat it as much.  But when we’re vulnerable, we’re much more sensitive which just stands to reason.

Of course, being sensitive to feeling misunderstood is something of a personality shadow many of us empathic individuals share.  It’s one of the key markers of the HSP, the highly sensitive person—which is not a slight against the person.

In times past, in the toughen-up age, society had little tolerance for the HSP in a person, but society also was a harder place for those with mental ill-health, and these days, especially, mental health issues are just so prevalent.

These days society acknowledges that telling people to toughen up increases the risk of suicide.

These days we acknowledge how tough life is, especially given we live in about as uncertain a time as we ever have.  There are just so many existential threats; war, economic crises, climate change to name just three.  But there is also a myriad of personal and interpersonal factors that also leave people feeling exposed.

When it comes to being stuck in the cycle between feeling misunderstood and feeling guilty, what can be done to strike the balance?

First, accept that when feeling vulnerable mentally and emotionally, feeling guilt, shame, and feeling misunderstood come with the territory.

Learning to be gentler with ourselves in both our response and our response to our response is key.

Layering guilt over guilt only serves to layer shame over shame, when the alternative would be to sit in the moment and simply acknowledge, “Gee, I’m not at my best at present, but I’m doing my best, and that’s okay.”

Underneath many of our guilt attributions is a story or more that we subconsciously tell ourselves.  “You shouldn’t have done it like that!”  “What were you thinking.”  “Oh, wow, we’re here in THIS again; when will you ever learn?”  These judging thoughts are based in stories of perfection that can never truly be realised in our lives.

It would be better to just sit in those moments, and neither defend ourselves nor judge ourselves.  If only we sat there in a third response, which is to just sit and empty ourselves of both defence and judgment, we might feel a little less triggered at those most horrendous of times.

This is not to say that we ought to feel guilty or inadequate or judge ourselves for having failed in doing this so many times.  I think we all know how that works.  No, that would defeat the purpose and would illustrate why the opportunity beckons.

There’s no shame in getting things wrong, and indeed there’s great strength shown in not judging ourselves when we’ve messed up yet again.  It’s the concept that self-recrimination serves nobody.

Photo by Michael Shannon on Unsplash

Christian faith answers suffering best when it has no answer

I must have attempted to nail an article like this many times, but so often words evade me even when I’m focused on such a topic, because I attempt to explain the inexplicable.

The rich and caverns-deep Christian tradition of Lament is the answer to suffering exactly because it doesn’t pretend to have an answer.  In lament, which is being true to the sorrow and fear and grief in a situation, there is a bold acknowledgement that there is no answer.

Lament defies sceptics who expect 
Christians to put up SOME answer.

Sceptics know that pretentious answers 
reduce Christian faith to hocus pocus.

I’m sure many Christians feel their faith needs to have answers to all things.  They feel it must have some ‘value’ to this degree—it must be ‘good’ for something when life is tough!  Yet, precisely the opposite is what true Christian faith is about—being brave and humble enough to honour the truth, and honest enough to know that there are no ‘pat’ answers to the toughest situations in life.

But that’s not the end of it!  On the contrary, Christian faith IS the answer to every lamentable situation, however long lasting the situations may be, when it offers no answer.

Here are some reasons why Christian faith answers suffering best when it has no answer:

§     In not pretending to have the answer, there is no spiritual bypassing, but the opportunity to sit and do what Lament does—lament.  Lament has integrity with the truth of what hurts so much! Lament is stillness, and in stillness despite the pain there is healing.

§     In lamenting we get the opportunity to engage in what I call ‘facing’, which is simply sitting there in the presence of suffering’s reality, which is something that doesn’t defeat us when we engage in it.  It often compels us to reach out for support.  And in facing, we find that our suffering doesn’t comprehensively defeat us, though it does take us to a place of blessed brokenness for what cannot be changed.

§     One moment at a time, we find with facing, we CAN endure it, and the pain always teaches us something—which is often something we learn by faith in the moment as we look back afterwards.  There are fathoms of depth to be learned in compassion through suffering, for one instance.

§     And that’s not all.  When ‘facing’ with the genuine support of another, there’s a confidence gained when neither gives way to the temptation to need an answer.  This involves getting to that rare place of Liminal Space—which is that in-between place between what-was and what-will-be.  Nothing heals us quite as effectively, nor gives us confidence in the faithfulness of God, as sitting in liminal space.

§     In being broken beyond our capacity to bear, we’re not broken forever.  We learn that being broken and feeling broken are actually an essential part of Christian faith—Jesus was broken.  Hardly ever will we grow like we do when we’re in a place of extended brokenness.

§     The world needs to see more examples of true Christian faith in suffering that has no answer and pretends nothing whatsoever—honouring horrific realities is respectful but denying and bypassing reveals hypocrisy.  There is so much Christian tradition that speaks to the reality of Christians who prospered even as they suffered, and this speaks nothing about the spiritual blessings enjoyed afterward in keeping with Hebrews 12:11.

§     Moments are transformed when we take the pressure out of them.  When it’s acknowledged that there’s no answer, the moment is freed up of pressure to do the impossible, which is of course ludicrous.  It’s in these moments of being utterly useless, where all we can do is accept what is, where God’s power resides most.

§     This must simply be experienced to know its power: sit with sadness and call it what it is, without needing to change it or explain it away, and we find that sadness truly appreciates being met.  Our sadness craves recognition.  Recognising our sadness is essential to our wellbeing.  In the brokenness IS the healing.

§     The extended time period we suffer for keeps us in the growth zone.  Growth is the only compensation for suffering, which is paradoxical, because growth is wonderful, but it is also replete with pain.  So by being kept in the situation of our grief we learn what we would otherwise not.

Sceptics of Christian faith may have seen responses to suffering by Christians that are neither biblical nor helpful, for example the use of spiritual bypassing like, “Just focus on the positives in your life... count your blessings... don’t worry and don’t fear, God will use your suffering for good... don’t you know that God is with you,” etc, including pat use of Bible verses.  None of this is from a heart to help.  Whilst there is truth in these statements, they shortcut the power of God.

TRUE CHRISTIAN FAITH

True Christian faith denies nothing of the suffering realities we encounter and find we’re marooned in.  Those of true faith sit there in the reality of our distress with us—yes, that’s true relational faith.  These are the faithful, utilising the power of faith in acknowledging there is no answer.  The last thing a person who’s suffering wants from a support person is an attitude that doesn’t honour the starkness of the reality they’re in.

To sit there and lament means no explaining it away as if we mere humans could have any logical, helpful, or valuable insight about the situation and a step-by-step on how to recover.

The truth is suffering is beyond human answer.  No human being can rationalise it.  (Isaiah 55:8-9 attests to this truth.)  Only as we engage in lament are we given a process that helps to keep us safe in the moment and gives us hope for healing eventually.

Everyone is dubious about a religion or faith system that pretends to have the market cornered on suffering, and that’s because most of the world knows it’s too complex and too impossible for human fixing.

Lament is central to true healing, 
ONE DAY AT A TIME, 
by faith,
over the long haul.

Somehow—and I can’t explain how—just by sitting and facing our anguish, by learning the practice and engaging in it, we give ourselves the best chance of healing.

The reason this is the case is we see that we can bear it and that gives us confidence and hope, and somehow the pain dissipates when we bear the truth, even though the source of grief doesn’t change.

Suffering demands a response, and lament is that response.