Chapter Three
The Other Side of Pain and Suffering
By denying their pain, avoiding the necessary falling, many have kept themselves from their own spiritual depths—and therefore have been kept from their own spiritual heights.
Richard Rohr, Falling Upward
A few years ago, I traveled to Mount Saint Helens with fifty middle schoolers, teachers, and parents. I don’t camp; I’m high maintenance about food, sleeping, and, well, just about everything. When the Ape Cave excursion was first mentioned, the word hike was used. Hiking is good; it’s not camping. On the morning of the excursion, a morning after sleeping in old wooden cabins without heat, we drove to Cougar, Washington, lined up at the cave entrance, walked inside, and stepped down. I remember wondering where the experts were. Not a single establishment or park ranger could be seen for miles. As we continued down into the center of the earth, I felt well equipped with my warm coat and headlamp. But no one could have prepared me for what happened during the next three hours. Aside from the narrow beams from our tiny headlamps, we walked in complete darkness, our hands groping along the walls so we could find our way.
When the groups behind and in front separated from us, the dark became darker. I hadn’t noticed before how black comes in shades. The sound of silence made me lose my sense of direction. At that moment I faced a dreadful feeling of fear unlike any I have ever known. I could feel panic’s hands around my neck. With three young girls near me, I knew I had to take the responsibility to lead us out. Petrified, all my spirit could utter was Show me one light. Just one light. God, please, show me one light. Crawling on our stomachs through the caves, we could not see inches in front of us. We moved forward with a mixture of fear and faith along the dark, cold rock. Finally, we saw the lights ahead. Winding through the caves for another hour, I drank in darkness while fear still shook in my blood. When we caught up with our group, my relief was palpable.
That affliction, that fear, was not something I wanted in my life. Yet it commanded my attention. I was so focused on getting out of the situation that I was able to let go of what was unimportant and focus solely on the two things I needed to do at that moment: find the lights and support those closest to me.
Getting to the Gold
We are living in a time when we can be easily deceived.1 In part, we are easily deceived because we are so isolated from one another, especially from other generations. Overall, we lack a regard and respect for our teachers, pastors, and leaders. We’re also deceived because we’ve been seduced into thinking we don’t need spiritual guidance or instruction. We have a wrong perspective of Scripture, or we assume we know what it’s saying. I’ve heard some Christian women question God’s Word as an authority in their lives. When they are suffering and need a light to lead them out, these young women have nothing brighter to focus on than their own pain; this leads to hopelessness. Yet Scripture says we have hope in the midst of suffering, and part of our job is to share the hope we have with the next generation.
Keep in mind that the information younger women need from us is not more intellectual knowledge. What they need from us is our stories—both the sad parts and the happy parts, our missteps and failures and our right steps and successes. And they need to hear about our pain and suffering, perhaps most of all. One of the young women I interviewed said, “I feel a distance from older women of faith because I rarely see a transparency and honesty that connects to my own doubts and struggles. Don’t older women realize that when they are real about their suffering, it helps me with my second-guessing?” What this young woman was saying was that she longed for women who would share with her the spiritual wisdom and understanding they had gained on the other side of suffering.2
In our fallen world, the question is not whether we will experience suffering. The questions are when and how we will respond to suffering when it comes. Before we face pain and suffering, we often believe the world and our comforts revolve around us. We see everything that happens to us through our selfish perspectives because we haven’t yet been refined by God’s process. It’s paramount for our spiritual growth that we get to the other side of suffering—that’s where we find the gold. It’s the gold we pass along to the next generation.
Jesus knew his purpose on this earth was to glorify God with the power given him. As Christian women, we must have that same perspective, but our lives can bring glory to him from only one position: an absolute willingness to be taught and helped. A life possessed by God in the face of suffering is a life worth living. Self-pity, which is essentially turning inward in suffering, brings forth more of the same and takes others down with it. There’s only one way to get to the other side of suffering and to find the gold of spiritual wisdom and understanding. It’s to do what God wants you to do. We get closer to the other side of the pain the more we let God come in and do what he wants to do.
That’s what King Josiah did.
An Old Testament Model
Josiah’s story is revealed in the Old Testament. He was an ideal king who reigned in Judah, a king who was prophesied about more than two hundred years earlier (1 Kings 13). The Scriptures say that King Josiah surpassed King David in his faithfulness to God (2 Kings 22). Early in his reign, Josiah launched a massive effort to abolish pagan worship throughout Israel and Judah. He made it his aim to repair the temple of the Lord.
Most likely Josiah heard stories about what God expected of his people, but at this time, there was no copy of the Holy Scriptures in anyone’s hands. Josiah had never heard God’s expectations of a king because the book of the law3 had been lost for more than four hundred years. Somewhere along the way, the book of the law was either carelessly tossed to the side or maliciously hidden by an idolatrous king. Whatever happened, someone didn’t want it to see the light of day. Then one day some workers in the temple uncovered the sacred writings.
The secretary told King Josiah, “We were paying our workmen for taking care of the temple when the high priest gave me a book, and I want to read it to you.” When Josiah heard the words of the book and what God expected of him and his people, he tore his clothes because he was so upset. Josiah was devastated because he saw how God was dishonored, and he heard the ruin that was about to come to his people. Recognizing the holy words of God, he ordered his officials to find out what was going on and to pray to God (2 Kings 22:1–21).
Instead of trying to control the situation, instead of letting the pain and anxiety settle too long in his blood, instead of regretting the past four hundred years, Josiah humbled himself and cried out to God. “I’m seeking you. I’m asking you. I am so broken before you that I want you to seek me too. Search me; I give you full permission to search me.” In essence, Josiah’s heart was tender—tender enough that he could be taught and helped by God. In asking God to search him, he was asking God to show him if there was any sin in his heart. Was there something he could do right here and now that God wanted him to focus on? Josiah was asking for more of God—his plans, his thoughts, his perspective. More important than the pain he felt was the deep need to obey God’s commands; so instead of fixating on his pain, he focused on what God had to say. Josiah willingly dealt with his suffering in the presence of Someone who knew his heart better than he did. Absolute surrender was the only way to get to the other side of his suffering.
Like me, Josiah was in a dark cave, unable to see a way out. But he embraced the pain, and as he did, he humbled himself before God, surrendering all he had previously thought a godly king should be. He was now learning the fear of the Lord.
What can we learn from Josiah about how we should respond when suffering comes into our lives?
Humble Yourself before God
When Scripture tells us that Josiah “tore his robes,” it means he literally tore his outer garments as a sign of his repentance and grief. It was customary at this time in Jewish history for loud cries and wailing to be heard when a person was broken before God. Similarly, when we cry out to God, we are asking for his presence to come even closer, because the pain and suffering are too much. We humble ourselves because we need God’s help to take the next step.
Josiah’s heart was remorseful, even though he had not been aware that he and his people had been sinning. When our suffering is caused by sinful or unwise choices that we’ve made—and even when it is caused by another’s sin toward us—we too must fling ourselves onto the sovereignty of God. It’s an act of humility because it is an acknowledgment of our insufficiency and his sufficiency.
I saw this kind of humility modeled a few years ago when a family from our girls’ school lost their home and pets in a fire. They were devastated by such instant loss of past and present. Later when I visited with the dad, he said, “In that moment, our only thought was Everything belongs to God.”
When God saw Josiah’s broken spirit, he said, “Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself … I also have heard you.… Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring” (2 Kings 22:19–20). This is so important for us to grasp: when we surrender and bring our broken selves into the presence of God, we are so focused we become more aware of his presence than at any other time in our lives (Ps. 34:18). His nearness is palpable. When our response to pain and suffering is humility, we give God the freedom to liberate us from ourselves and from others so he can do a mighty work.
Plead with Others to Pray
Josiah received this gift of pain that was his alone. But like Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, when Josiah was overwhelmed with sorrow, he asked those closest to him to keep watch and pray (Matt. 26:38).
Pain sears us. It can hollow us too. I know that when affliction comes upon me and I let it settle too long in my bones and blood, I relate to those closest to me in fear. I turn inward and focus on self-pity instead of on God’s purposes for the suffering. When I don’t ask God to search my inner spirit, suffering can turn me into a bitter, cynical, controlling woman. If I let that happen, I will be in an even worse place of pain than I already am.
Because it is so personal, suffering can tempt us to isolate ourselves. But when we cut ourselves off from others, especially the women in our lives, we are exactly where the enemy wants us. We must fight the urge to separate ourselves from others for too long. If we are to become safe havens for others in our lives, we must be willing to humble ourselves in the presence of God and ask those closest to us to seek the face of God for us.
That’s what Jesus did. I’m so thankful for his example in the garden of Gethsemane. He prayed to the Father because he knew his suffering wasn’t meaningless. He wanted his friends, the disciples, to fight alongside him in prayer. He didn’t deny the agony of his suffering. He was brutally honest in his cries to God and begged God to take the cup of suffering from him. But because of his deep love for us, he said, “Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matt. 26:39).
That’s exactly what we must do. We must plead with others to pray for us and with us. We pray on our own for those we love and who love us. We cry out for wisdom, knowing God will respond.
Our suffering and our lives are never wasted when they are surrendered to God, because along the way he gives us pieces of gold that we can share with others. But the process of getting to the other side—to wisdom’s gold—takes both our own prayers and the prayers of others.
Plead with God to Search Your Heart
King Josiah begged God to search his heart by tearing his clothes and sending his officials to pray to the Lord (2 Kings 22:11–13). Recognizing that only God knew what was truly happening, Josiah set an emergency team in motion to search for whatever would block God from getting involved and acting quickly.
Why did he want God to search his heart? For one thing, he wanted God’s favor. While Josiah hadn’t sinned deliberately against God, he realized God’s Word wasn’t being followed or implemented in any way. By pleading with God to search his heart, he was asking God to reveal anything that would hinder God’s favor or keep him from following God’s commands any longer.
When we go through suffering, we may be tempted to think, I’ve done something wrong and that’s why I’m suffering. God is punishing me. That’s rarely the case. So we need to ask God what’s at the source of our suffering. If we are suffering due to no fault of our own, we still must ask God to search our hearts for anything that is blocking what he wants to do. Are we teachable? Are we willing for God to help us?
We ask God to search us so we can discover the truth and transcend our circumstances in order for our lives to have more of God’s Spirit and less of our flesh. Even though Josiah knew the truth in part, he still needed God to search him to ensure his own thoughts and feelings wouldn’t get in the way of God’s purposes. We need to do the same. Like the psalmist, we must cry out, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps. 139:23–24).
The Hebrew word for “inquire of” in 2 Kings 22:13 is daras. It means “to seek, to consult, to ponder,” and it also means “to be sought after, to let oneself be inquired, to allow a search to be made.” King Josiah pleaded with God to search him, and because he wanted a full picture, he asked others to seek God on his behalf too. His officials called on Huldah the prophetess for prayer, and she was so in tune with God that Josiah found out immediately what was on God’s heart and mind.
When the focus of our attention becomes all about hearing from God, we find the most resourceful people we know. Josiah’s focus was clear: to find out what God was trying to tell him. Perhaps the purpose of God searching our hearts is to bring everything that’s in them out to the open.
God helped Kimberly sift through her pain when her doctor told her she would never have children of her own. For the first few days, the finality of the doctor’s words, “You are infertile,” clung to her as she wept on her bathroom floor. She knelt on the cold floor and begged God to help her deal with the pain. Then she sent an SOS text to a friend that said, “I’m a mess. Dr. declared me infertile.” Less than thirty minutes later, her friend sat by her on the floor and cried with her. As her friend cried out to God for her, she said, “God, search Kimberly’s heart as this reality takes root and show her the new path you have for her.”
Years later, as Kimberly served on a church staff as a spiritual director, she shared with a group of women how God lovingly had used her worst nightmare to give her hundreds of spiritual children. “He answered me when I called out to him. And sometimes it wasn’t pretty. But the way God answered me has changed the way I viewed not having biological children.” Kimberly was able to tell others about her deep sadness and what God did with it only because she humbled herself to God’s searching of her in the deepest places. In so doing, she heard that her value and fulfillment were not attached to giving birth. She also saw how she was free to invest herself in others differently from most women she knew. If we, like Josiah and Kimberly, will humble ourselves in the presence of God, plead with others to pray for us, and beg God to search us in the deeper parts, our suffering can lead to spiritual wisdom and understanding.
What Scripture Says about Suffering
Some segments of our Christian culture disagree with what I am saying and are still trying to persuade us to avoid pain and to seek prosperity and personal fulfillment. Yet true Christian teaching from Scripture is actually the opposite.4 Jeremiah wrote, “But, though he cause grief,” insinuating that God brings pain and suffering and fear. He went on to write, “He will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love” (Lam. 3:32 ESV). In other words, suffering is something we can learn from when we believe God can and will respond. It sharpens our senses by burning away anything in our hearts and minds that is not for the purpose of glorifying God.
When we are honest about our suffering, pain, and fear, God’s love helps us endure because it transforms us one step at a time. His love helps us understand that we don’t need to be afraid of suffering—that it is a part of life and something that God can use to make us more transparent and approachable.
Recently, I lost a close relationship for complicated reasons. Through my pain and confusion, I prayed for God to heal the division, but that didn’t happen. What I did realize was how I was placing too much emphasis on that friendship. The wisdom I gained from the loss of this relationship caused me to see my other friendships in a healthier light. Suffering shifts our attention to what’s most important. As C. S. Lewis’s famous saying reminds us, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain; it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”5
After Huldah the prophetess shared with Josiah how God wanted the king’s people to once again hear and obey his Word, Josiah used all of his power and energy to make right what was wrong. He rebuilt his kingdom by implementing the Word of God once again. Anything else he was working on went to the wayside. The Israelites were guilty of bowing down and worshiping pagan gods that had been introduced to them when they had first entered the Promised Land. But Josiah heard the Scriptures and purged the land of pagan priests and pagan gods. He did everything he could to obey God’s Word; a wise move on his part.
When we are suffering, Scripture serves as a messenger of healing, sometimes correcting, exhorting, and encouraging, and many times reminding us of God’s presence. When I’m in a season of suffering and I can’t find my way, my spirit often utters, Just one light, God, and a Scripture verse then comes to mind and lights the step in front of me. “Ah,” I say, “makes sense; sounds wise.” I am then one step closer to the other side, with a few gold coins jingling in my pocket.
When We Don’t Invite God into Our Own Suffering
Sadly, many incredible leaders and mature Christians are missing opportunities for honest and transparent conversations with the next generation because they don’t know how to deal with their own suffering. They have never placed their broken selves in God’s presence and asked him to search them or asked others to listen to him on their behalf.
It’s not easy to experience pain or to have the first response of placing our broken selves in the presence of God. We must beg the Spirit of God to search our hearts during a time of suffering lest our pain cause us to hide our true selves. Unrefined pain hardens women’s hearts. Pain that hasn’t been sifted through the loving heart of God makes us lose our way, leaving us confused and disillusioned on the inside. Many times it is the reason behind the tendency to fix people when they share with us about a concern or problem.
The Tendency to Try to “Fix” Others
Until we learn how to respond to the suffering in our own lives, we will continue to try to fix people. When we experience God’s searching of us and wait in his presence with a willingness to receive from Scripture personally, we can then respond to those who are suffering with more of God’s heart and mind.6
This was the case for Diana, whose doctor told her, “You have an aggressive form of cancer.” As the doctor explained the next steps and appointments, she knew this diagnosis would change her life—especially her relationship with God. By the time she hung up the phone, she had determined to invite God into every aspect of her disease. God, she prayed later that night, I surrender my life into your capable hands.
What caused more pain for her than the operation and chemo was the thought that her four-year-old daughter and infant son could be motherless. Diana leaned heavily on what God showed her through Scripture. These verses gave her hope and kept her from self-pity and bitterness. Years later, when I met Diana, she told me that what got her to the other side of her suffering was God’s promises to her. “God didn’t promise me a long life or even physical healing. But he did remind me that he’s the Father to the fatherless. That’s what I held on to when I was so sick day after day.”
Diana did not focus on the statistics of cancer survivors. Instead she focused on truths that told her about God, particularly that he would never leave her or forsake her.7 And she held him to those truths. What grounded her further were the scriptures of God’s sovereignty in the midst of total chaos.8 Believing he was in control settled her spirit. Because Diana trusted in what God gave her from Scripture while she was suffering through cancer, she can now offer wisdom without a need or desire to fix the hundreds of younger women who face similar battles.
False Knowledge and Understanding
When we follow the pattern laid out for us in Scripture while we are suffering, we will suffer well. Ironically, the two greatest barriers to suffering well are lack of knowledge and lack of understanding: we are fearful of not knowing enough to handle the problem and anxious when we don’t understand what the future holds. Aren’t those two things behind our desire to fix other people? So we overthink the suffering that has come to us instead of looking for what God has to say personally to us through Scripture.
It’s our responsibility to make sure we are not offering others advice that contradicts Scripture or God’s ways. What the younger generation needs is the “spiritual wisdom and understanding”9 that come only from God, as true spiritual wisdom comes only through the Holy Spirit.
Living Out the Pattern of Sharing Wisdom
Authors Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn are the creators of the brilliant book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.10 Focusing on three particular issues for the world’s women—sex trafficking, gender-based violence, and maternal mortality—they offered solutions, such as girls’ education and microfinance, for these tragedies. They have seen how outsiders can truly make a significant difference in the lives of women suffering these injustices. Their book gives example after example of women who have turned despair into hope. We as Christian women need to do the same by talking about how God has turned our own despair into hope.
Young women need us to connect their suffering with our own pain and faith stories. We need to tell them our own stories of infertility, abuse, rape, bankruptcy, job loss, unfaithful spouses, pornography addictions, drug addictions, poverty, gambling, eating disorders, poor body image, abortion, widowhood, grief, accidents, and disease. This gives us a chance to tell what God did for us and in us during our times of suffering; those listening will hear about Christian hope. This is how we model a biblical view of suffering.
When people hear despairing stories that are turned into hope, it encourages them to sink into the sovereignty of God. They can hear the wisdom others gleaned from a horrible time. All of us are bombarded with news of mass shootings, genocides, school bombings, female mutilation, and sex slavery. Such atrocities may have existed before, but now we know about them sooner and with more detail. The women behind us don’t have the wisdom and experience we have gained from walking with God for more years. That is why it is so important that we share our stories. They matter.
Here are some specific things you can do to share the wisdom you have gained:
1. Tell your stories of suffering. I grew up in a church where people were given an opportunity to talk about what God was doing in their lives. On Sunday nights, the pastor would ask if anyone had a testimony. Inevitably there were tears and cliché comments about hope in Jesus. A few years later, when Brad and I were in deep grief, I remembered those stories as I developed a fresh vocabulary for tough times, and they reminded me that my pain had a purpose beyond me. The testimonies of my elders served as tiny headlamps, leading me out of utter darkness.
So talk with women about what Jesus has done in your life. Telling our stories of suffering and hope gives listeners a chance to ponder what God’s role is in our suffering. It’s that kind of introspection and reflection that the younger generation longs for.
Every time I share a story of my own suffering and what God gave me through it, women want to tell me their similar stories. It doesn’t matter if I’m just having a private conversation or speaking publicly. Many women haven’t told their stories of getting to the other side. I’ve found that my transparency breeds transparency in others. Telling our stories aloud takes away the fear of saying the truth and creates safe places for the women who are listening. They think, I need to talk openly about what I’ve been through and stop keeping it hidden.
2. Articulate Christ’s work in your life every day. We need fresh ways to say how Jesus is our hope in overcoming the world’s suffering. This happens best in everyday conversations. Just verbally being thankful for one thing in the day and recognizing that such a gift is from God are ways of passing along a godly attitude. We can also be honest with others about times when we did not forgive someone even though we knew this was what Christ taught.
Thinking godly about our answers to pain and suffering is a lost art. When we have conversations with other women, we must pass along biblical attitudes about suffering. As Kenda Creasy Dean wrote, “That reinforces the church’s unique understanding of who God is in Jesus Christ.”11 It brings them healing.
3. Journal your stories. Writing forces us to organize and categorize our stories. It helps us articulate what happened and what we learned, sometimes bringing to our awareness things we hadn’t even realized were in our stories.
Whenever I mentor writers at writing workshops, the majority of my conversations center on the person’s journey or story. Each time, the writer shows up sheepishly, not thinking that she has anything to say. But that is never the case. Journaling can help you find your voice so you can tell your stories of suffering and pain to someone God brings along your path. As you tell a story, you will allow the listener to become introspective or thoughtful and you will get to hear once again how your suffering gave you wisdom.
Healing Bridges the Gap
It took Brad and me years before we could articulate God’s goodness after Anthony and Elisa were killed. We gained wisdom about the way we lived our lives, the goals we set, and how we treated others who lost loved ones unexpectedly. Over and over again, the Spirit of God led us to humble ourselves, to ask others to pray, and to beg God to search our hearts. We leaned in to hear what God had to say about what was in our hearts. In the first year, I learned how God heals in time. I started to form a tenderness for Scripture instead of viewing it as a list of warnings. It’s from this pattern of how to respond to suffering that I now draw close to the women in the next generation.
Last Christmas I received a phone call from a woman whose husband left her for another man. They had been married for twenty years and had raised four children, two still at home, and now she will finish raising the family on her own. When I pray with her, I focus on the facts and what step she must take next. When she insists on praying for her husband’s restoration, I ask God to search her heart and I agree with her in prayer, as I know only God can change a person.
One of my relatives was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer soon after an excruciating battle with her bipolar husband who had died a year earlier. She is full of faith, the things of God, and hope. When we talk, we focus on what’s good in life and in the world. “Why was my life so full of suffering?” she asks. As we enter into that question together, we both start seeing the good gifts God generously gave her, and I count them aloud for her. There’s a wisdom in naming the good in the presence of suffering and pain. It’s also an art.
Stories of other women come to mind as well. A dear friend who works as an oncology nurse at a large teaching hospital is facing a nasty divorce after discovering that her husband was cheating on her with various women for more than fifteen years. I walked alongside her in some dark moments as she realized her marriage had been a lie. Because of my own suffering, I knew it would take time for her to even want to heal. Often I was just present while she cried out to God for help. She just needed a witness to her pain.
Two friends have sons under eighteen who have life-threatening illnesses. One does not have a cure to this day. Her son is eight years old. Each of these women prays and seeks God, and I’ve been a part of the friend circle who prays for them. Their situations haven’t been made perfect; in fact, I struggle with wanting to keep praying. As Philip Yancey wrote, “Somehow we must offer our prayers with a humility that conveys gratitude without triumphalism, and compassion without manipulation, always respecting the mystery surrounding prayer.”12 What I have witnessed is that the wisdom God gives from a time of suffering is always passed along to another—maybe not in an exact form, but something true and real is given. Such spiritual wisdom is worth more than gold.
But we can’t offer this kind of wisdom if we haven’t allowed God to heal us and change us, if we haven’t submitted to the process we have been discussing in this chapter. If you have never surrendered your suffering to God and allowed him to search your heart and sift through what is there, it is not too late to do it now. No matter how much time has passed since you first experienced suffering, you can still take the steps of getting to the other side.
Remember, none of us are immune to suffering; we cannot compare our suffering, but we must tell our stories. In this way we differentiate the pain and create vulnerability and we provide safe places for others to tell their own stories of pain. Think about the younger women in your life and what it is you want to pass along to them. Look at their lives, their concerns, their fears, and their hopes and dreams. Now look down the path you’ve walked with God all these years. The wisdom and spiritual insight you have dangling around your neck is the gold that has passed through the fire of suffering. Now it’s time to give it away. And when you are in the presence of a younger woman who is desperate for your stories, as you begin the telling, as you begin to share your gold, her heart will whisper, Thank you, God, for that one light.