In the midst of suffering...

Everyone wants to experience those mountaintop moments but no one wants to go through the valleys or arduous climbs that it takes to get there. If you’re like me, you’d rather take a nice flight over and be dropped down on top of the mountain. But that’s not how life works and if I’m honest, I wouldn’t be who I am today, if I hadn’t experienced some valleys in my life. But I discovered today that I actually have a pattern. Every time I’m about to start a new chapter or go into unchartered territory, my old nemesis fear and comparison rear their ugly heads. I start thinking abut all of the things that could go wrong. I focus on things that have gone wrong in the past, and I fear that the cycle will start again. So mentally and emotionally, I’m transported back to that last season of suffering before I’m there. I call it anticipatory suffering. So I go in to self-preservation mode and do everything I can do to try to control the outcome and prevent ever feeling that kind of hurt or pain again. An exercise in futility I know, but fear prevents us from being logical and it gives us spiritual amnesia about all the mountains you’ve climbed in the past. And we spend all of our energy focusing on and preparing from something that may not even happen.

Fear makes you forget that suffering is not the destination. Rather, it’s something you journey through. God never intended you to stay there and thankfully, He’s there to help lead you out and to sit there with you in the midst of it until you’re ready to move. I think God understands and recognizes that before we’re ready to move through the suffering, we have to be healed from our pain. And after we’re healed, true transformation can take place.

Just in case you think I’m immune to spiritual amnesia, I’ll share an excerpt I wrote in my journal 3 years ago that I didn’t remember until today:

“I was reading a devotion this morning about how God rebuilt the temple after the Jews had been exiled and one of the verses for emphasis was one of my favorites: I Peter 5:10, which states, ‘And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.’ I have leaned on that scripture so many times in my life, most notably after significant loss-loss of a job, loss of loved one, loss of my children, born and unborn, and I believe, I needed to believe that God would one day restore that/who had been taken from me. I was always focused on what God would do for me. Restoration always meant the return of things, status, and even now, financial stability. And it hit me today, the rebuilding that God wants to do is within me. The restoration that He wants to bring about is within my broken heart, not in my circumstances.”

We’re all shaped by our circumstances and sometimes it’s our circumstances that make it hard to trust God with our suffering; to trust God beyond our suffering; to trust that this time there will be an end to the suffering; to trust that we can be transformed in the midst of the suffering. If you’re like me, you carry wounds from your seasons of suffering and they can serve as a reminder that sometimes things just don’t go right and suffering is unavoidable, but can I tell you a secret? I’ve learned that God can be trusted in the midst of the suffering.

I always sought God in the midst of suffering but that’s because I needed Him to do something for me-help me with my children, help me with my finances, help me navigate this pandemic, help this pain to stop, help me get pregnant, help me stop wanting to get pregnant, help me pour into your people, help me do, help me get. It’s only recently that I’m learning to ask God to help me be.

Help me be quiet, so I can learn to hear your voice. Help me be still, so I can give my mind, body and soul rest, and trust that you’re working. Help me be less fearful and more faithful. Help me become who you created me to be.  

Believe me. I know that change is scary and surrendering, especially for Type A personalities like me, is hard. And being still actually takes work. Walking into the unknown can be overwhelming. These past few years have been and continue to be hard on so many levels. Sometimes I ask God, “Can I just catch my breath? Can things be smooth and easy just for a little while?” I know surrendering is hard because more than likely doing so will blow all of my well-designed plans and agendas out of the water and I’m not ready yet. But I also know that’s not the path to true transformation and growth because you can’t climb a smooth mountainside. But honestly, I’m okay staying on this part of the mountain range, if only for a little while longer. Sometimes I just need to catch my breath and regain my footing. But I know I have to prepare for the next phase of the journey and to surrender myself to be equipped and prepared for what’s to come. I’ve also found that after a while, when I’ve cried all of the tears, when I’ve done all of the complaining, when I’ve let out all of my anger and frustration, it’s in those valleys that I’ve actually been filled and prepared. It’s in the suffering that I’ve actually learned what it means to rest.

I don’t know where you find yourself today, but wherever you are, know that you’re not alone. God is there with you, and I pray that you’ll find something in these pages to pour into your soul and restore you for this part of your journey.