We have all experienced suffering in our lives, in one form or another. Some of it has been short-lived, some have experienced windows of suffering spotted throughout their lives, and some have experienced deep suffering that they daily have to endure. Suffering can take all forms – physical pain, emotional pain, or mental pain/anguish. Some of you have experienced all three.
I think sometimes when we are in the midst of deep suffering, our first reaction is to compare it to someone else’s, or maybe think that your particular version of suffering is the worst there is because you just simply cannot bear it.
As I sit here typing this, I can honestly say I am in a trifecta of suffering – physical, emotional, and mental. My body hurts, I have a surgical incision that is not healing and is actually bleeding after 8 weeks post-op, my emotions are raw and ragged, and I am suffering the mental effects of trauma over the last year. I am truly at MY LIMITS. I still will not say I am an expert in the subject, I can only speak from my point of reference.
With that said, let me say that I really hate the saying “God will not give you more than what you can bear.” I do not believe that. For a second. Anyone suffering really doesn’t want to hear it either. If you’d said that to me, don’t worry – I still love you dearly, but let me explain.
I can’t bear this. I think that’s the point. I cannot in my own control, will, emotional, and mental capacity process this ordeal and make sense of it or fix it. I cannot compartmentalize it and store it away. I cannot let it go on angel’s wings and let it float to heaven and say “Oh, it’s all gone! I’m free and happy!” and skip away along my merry way. I’m living this every single day. I wake up in the morning and it stares me in the face. It reminds me when I go to do something physically and my body limits me. It reminds me when my children are weeping because they don’t know how to process all this and I don’t even have the mental capacity to tend to my own feelings about the matter, let alone theirs. It reminds me when I see my husband’s shoulders drooping because he’s carrying the financial load, emotional load, and whatever else he’s trying to carry on his shoulders because he’s a man and men are supposed to ‘fix things.’ He has to be strong for his family.
This is hard. Hard isn’t even the word. This is MORE than I can bear. It’s beyond me.
Suffering isn’t something that can be measured. It’s not a wound that has the right sized bandaid that can cover over it. It’s not something that a self-help book, a devotional, a meal, or a hug can fix. Suffering does not exist in a dimension that we can measure. Suffering is something that you live THROUGH. The only thing that can cover the expanse of suffering is God Himself. Because God does not exist inside the finiteness of our minds. Suffering is something we cannot measure no matter how much we try, that is why only God can truly help with our suffering.
I have found that suffering is never eased into. You’re usually thrust into it much like being dropped into the middle of the ocean with no land in sight. You are not wearing anything to help you float and you’re already exhausted before you are dropped there. Suffering teaches us there is nothing we can do to stop it, fix it, or control it. The only answer for suffering is surrender.
Surrender takes trust, but not just verbal trust, not just a decision that we can mark off our checklist of ‘right things to do.’ Surrender takes us letting go, and even possibly the feeling of beginning to sink. It’s a letting go of our right to survive so to speak. We must depend on something else greater than ourselves to bring us through it – and even to LIVE through it (emotionally, mentally, AND physically).
When we’re first dropped into suffering, we thrash around and kick and scream. We try to muster up the fight to barrel our way through it, but we find that before long we run out of steam. There’s no more strength or wit or intelligence to help us. It’s then that I believe God waits. Just below the surface. Our face goes under the water and we think it’s the end, but God pushes our face up out of the waves and we can catch a breath. Then we float for a bit, we might go under a little bit again but before we expire for lack of oxygen, God lifts us up and we breathe again. And so is this ebb and flow of suffering much like an ocean. In fact, the song Oceans speaks so loud to me during this time because it reminds me to not focus on the waves and water (my circumstance). In fact, the words of the song says “your grace abounds in deepest waters.” DEEPEST. When you can’t see the bottom and you indeed would sink.
The other day I was driving in the car on my way to radiation and I thought about the concept of breathing. If I began to let my mind turn about the very thought of oxygen and that if oxygen were suddenly to disappear, I couldn’t survive but mere minutes without it. Yet I don’t fret about it. I don’t worry that I will not be able to have oxygen when I need it. I can’t even prove with my own two hands that there will be oxygen there when I need it, I totally have to depend on the fact that it will be there. In fact, I don’t even think about breathing. Ever. It just happens…the oxygen is there. In my mind, I believe it to be a constant sure thing that will never let me down. I can’t see it, I can’t feel it. But it’s there for me every time I need it. I can’t take any more oxygen into my lungs than what I need for this breath I’m on. I have to rely that when I’m finished this breath, there will be more ready for me.
And so I MUST live this way in all things. I only have enough for this very moment. I can’t fret and worry about the next moment. I can’t grab and shove some more of what I need in a box and hope I can have it “just in case” I am let down. I have to believe and have faith that what I need will be there when I need it. Surrender.
I hope this speaks to you. Whatever you’re going through. Maybe you are having a rough spot in your life. Maybe you just learned of the greatest tragedy you will ever face in your life and you aren’t sure how you’re going to make it through the day. But know this, the next breath is there for you. And so is God. Just take the next breath, step, hour, day that is in front of you. Let His light shine on the next step. It may be all that is illuminated in your life right now, but that is all that we’re promised and all that’s required of you.