Kaleidoscope of Suffering

It amazes me that it took this long.

In my forty-seven years, there have been seasons of sudden staggering losses, seasons of protracted suffering, and seasons of one thousand paper cuts. Sometimes unmentionable suffering. In each of them, I have known in my head that I was not alone. In many instances, the Father had supernaturally given me an image or a word reminding me that I was not alone, steadying me and giving me a peace that passes understanding. I was able to recount to others the lists of my feelings and losses and how he had sustained me. But I must admit, between his great and precious promises, my desire to testify of his faithfulness, and the supernatural assurance he’d given me, I resolutely kept my corresponding emotions under lock and key.

For most of my experiences, the only emotions I felt were numbness or anger. Grief and sorrow had been held hostage for too long in the cognitive side of my brain. Unknowingly, I white-knuckled through, stoically navigating seasons of suffering because the knowledge both that God was with me and that he was comforting me meant to me that he would shoulder the pain. The pain always seemed too tremendous for me to carry.

It was this January, after another bout with the illness that has ravaged both my mind and my body—as well as rearranged my entire life—that I began experiencing suffering in a new way. I had spent a week holed up in my room while my family tried not to catch the illness. They connected over games, bonded over movies, and feasted on meals that I had longed to share with them. While I waited for my body to clear a fever and a cough, unable to do anything but sweat, watch TV, and hope the headache and body ache didn’t inflict any more damage, my kids, home for a college break, spent a quiet week recovering from the holidays and preparing to head back to school. During this time, I asked God to teach me a new way.

Jesus, I don’t think I know how to let you comfort me because I’m not sure I have developed pathways in feeling my actual feelings. Let me not bypass myself again. Help me feel the emotions, and help me bring these emotions to you. Let me let you comfort me and companion me in my suffering.

I began by listing my losses. Then I became curious with impact: the actual feelings along with how I had suffered and how the sufferings had shaped my life.

Why were so many of the moments and days that I had reserved for my family robbed by illness? Not just the days themselves, but the actual depth of our relationships were stunted through my illness, our limited time together, and my limited capacity. I felt the anger. At God. That he let this happen. That I had to physically suffer and be robbed of richer relationships with my loved ones. That my kids would be robbed of the mother I think they should have.

I felt the pain from the illness itself and the deep sorrow that my kids might grow up not knowing how deeply I love them and how much I care for them. While my family celebrated and bonded once again without me, I felt lonely, left out, and abandoned to be in a room all by myself. I felt shame that I might not be as amazing of a mom as I’d hoped to be. I felt fear, that my kids’ journeys might be derailed because of mine. No one seemed to want to understand, and that hurt.

Unlike when I narrate a hard story for a church presentation, I felt the emotions in my body. I was no longer countering my questions with eternal truths, but giving myself permission to linger. And I was surprised . . . like a toddler who had stepped unsupported to the middle of the room before noticing that they were walking for the first time. The tears flowed.

I poured out my heart to God. Not as a cognitive list, but an unhindered river of words and feelings, pummeling his chest as an indignant two-year-old might pound on the one who carries them.

I was in new territory.

Crying out to him this time wasn’t a shortcut keeping me from emoting. Even though the escape door of bypassing my questions and emotions stood ready, complete with a flashing exit sign, I stayed in the room of sorrow and suffering.

While the territory for me was terrifying, my Good Shepherd had already charted it, having traversed it well before my time. This kaleidoscope of emotions that I can place on a feelings wheel but had yet to map on my body was overwhelming, touching on synapses that had been dormant for way too long.

And yet, he stayed near. Thankfully, not as a cold narrator providing pat answers, nor as a conquering hero outdoing my stories, nor as a Pollyanna showing me prism-refracted rainbows, but as the Shepherd of my soul who listens, sees, holds, and tends.

As you reflect on instances or seasons of suffering, what emotions do you feel? How has the Father met you in those valleys?