“Suffering,” I heard the podcast host say, “is wanting what you don’t have or having what you don’t want.” And that, my friend, pretty much nailed it for me.
One thing I consistently want is short-lived suffering. But maybe I’m the only one who doesn’t quickly embrace suffering. Accept it? Yes, but mostly because I don’t have any other choice.
As a biblical counselor (and a human), I have observed that, whether dealing with physical, emotional, or spiritual wounds, what hinders our healing isn’t just what happened to us—it’s also what we bring into our pain.
Paul Tripp says it so well, “We never just suffer the thing that we’re suffering. We always also suffer the way that we’re suffering the thing that we’re suffering.”
“Prove me, O LORD, and try me; test my heart and my mind.”
Psalm 26:2, ESV
Take a moment with me to consider some things we bring into our trials that make our suffering even worse. First, consider how your experience with past suffering affects you in your present situation.
What made my mother not panic when she was home with her five children, 12 and under, and unintentionally stuck a sharp knife blade entirely through her hand? Dare I say experience?
I was five years old and still remember her turning the tap on as she pulled the knife out of her blood-spurting hand. Then, wrapping the wound tightly with a tea towel, she calmly called out instructions to my oldest brother, Jimmy, who then herded our tribe of five into our white 60s station wagon. I don’t remember what happened at the ER after we got home or that it affected us going forward. But, even as a child, I knew that my mother was pretty amazing. Then again, she’d had plenty of emergencies by that time.
In the article, Resilience: Building skills to endure hardship, the Mayo Clinic staff explains that learning from our past experiences will help us handle present hardship. Which is great if you have learned from the past and, to put it bluntly, the past hasn’t scared the snot out of you.
Because fear from past trauma, whether big or small, compounds present suffering.
How we understand what we are suffering can also hinder our healing.
“O our God, wilt thou not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee.”
2 Chronicles 20:12, KJV
Often, when faced with a complex medical diagnosis such as cancer, coronary heart disease, or a rare medical diagnosis, our anxiety heightens. Initially, this is due to our fear of the unknown.
Such was the case of a dear friend who did not realize, as her children were born, that a life-altering and often fatal gene ran in her family. 1 in 1,000,000 people are carriers, and yet, three of her four children, as well as her husband, live with daily reminders of their condition; reminders that keep them fighting just to live.
For many years, what she did not know filled her heart with dread. As her confidence and knowledge about the syndrome grew, her fear and anxiety became more manageable. Is the suffering at times still challenging? Yes, but at least now she knows what she is dealing with.
Unfortunately, the knowledge of what one goes into from previous experience can magnify our suffering. Such as the case of my three brothers who sat by our father’s bedside and watched him die a painful death from cancer. One-by-one, they have walked through and continue to walk through this minefield. Fortunately, my father left an example of leaning on the Lord that they are now also showing.
Then, there are the coping skills that accompany us whenever a trial hits. Whether we like it or not, a great deal of how we cope with stress comes from our formative years. Some families seem to thrive on high drama. Then there are those who bury their pain. If we are fortunate, we don’t land in either extreme. Still, it would bode well for us to ask the Lord to help us be aware of unhealthy coping patterns we may carry.
Other factors shaping our coping skills are our past experiences, trauma impact, and God-given personality.
Any adult or child who has gone through significant or prolonged trauma often deals with unconscious adaptative coping skills. In other words, those hurting might be completely unaware of how they feel because they are trying so hard to keep the peace, “fix” the situation, or numbing themselves through various means.
On its own, personality carries idiosyncrasies, habits, and quirks that complicate our suffering. Overthinking, anyone? Idealism? Spectrum challenges?
This is not to say that God’s grace can’t change us—because it most certainly can. Nor does it endorse statements like, “This is just how I am,” or “My family is all like this.”
If we aren’t careful, our form of coping does nothing but add to the pain we are experiencing.
“Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.”
Psalm 55:22, ESV
And finally, the faulty theology we carry further exacerbates our suffering.
Far too often, we aren’t aware of how we say we believe one thing but actually live another.
“For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.”
Romans 10:2, ESV
It’s been easy to beat myself up for the bad theology I have carried at times into my own suffering. While I could recite who I was in Christ, my struggle showed my identity was firmly rooted in other things. My perception of God’s sovereignty, the doctrine that once gave me such comfort, at one point decimated me. His mercy seemed unattainable and His love impersonal. And this isn’t even the whole of my faith journey–there were the expectations I carried, a shallow theology of suffering, and an unhealthy fear of man, to name a few more.
When we give ourselves the liberty to ask the hard questions, and take the time to work through them biblically, we not only come out of each trial stronger, we are better equipped for the next one.
The good news is that, as children of the King of kings, we don’t fight for victory; we fight from victory.
And thank goodness, no amount of baggage we carry can every nullify the grace of God.
“But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
2 Corinthians 12:9
Are you willing to acknowledge the extras you or the one you are trying to help is carrying in the suffering? It takes humility, patience, and grace to look at our stuff and work through it.
Working through these things does not guarantee that we will not suffer, but it can bring some good out of what feels to be senseless pain. Sometimes, even without anything else extra, the trial is simply a mountain to climb. Cancer? Hard. Death? Hard. The suffering that would have resulted from my husband’s death would have been enough of a terrible cliff to face.
But there is no doubt that what I brought into my suffering made my pain more intense.
And yet, looking back, I can see how everything I carried–everything–needed to go through my heavenly Father’s refining fire. Only eternity will show the good that God has produced. Challenging? Absolutely. Humbly? Yes. But, oh, so very worth it. As I bow to Him, I believe that what He has and is working to accomplish in my life is one of His greatest gifts to this sinner.
A friend of mine once said that God gives parents of teens longsuffering because He knows they will suffer long. Those who have parented teenagers smile at that, but along those same lines, may I suggest that we have the benefits of a longsuffering God not only because that is who He is but also because He knows what it is to suffer long?
Don’t be afraid to sit with the Lord (and maybe a good counselor) and sort through everything you are carrying. God’s timetable is not our timetable, but God’s timetable is always best.
“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”
Psalm 147:3 ESV
God doesn’t want to just use our suffering to help sanctify us, He also wants to use what we bring into our suffering.