When Suffering IS The Blessing

My sister-in-law is just one of those absolutely authentic people in this world. She’s intolerant of drama, a servant in the truest sense of the word, big on critical thinking, incredibly intelligent, and a solid Christian who started her walk decades ago with light Christian reading like, ohhhhh… Arthur Pink.  Wisdom oozes from her pores.  She’s one of those people who is such a gift I have no idea what I’d do without her, and I know for a fact that God used this woman to shape and guide me.  She’s also one of the funniest people I know.

She tells me the other day that a woman described her vacation as blessed. God had blessed them with beautiful weather, He blessed them with the perfect hotel, blessed with great experiences.  Blessings, all over the place.  I knew where she was going with this.

“Soooooo…If they didn’t have good weather then God hadn’t blessed them?” I wondered wryly. Would rain have made it cursed?  Honestly we kind of chuckled about it.

She asked tongue-in-cheek how God had blessed me, because I’ve known the woman almost all my life and she knows what it’s looked like. I immediately started laughing and said, “With suffering and affliction!”  And because we’re both a little warped, we cracked up. I absolutely meant it, we both knew it, and fortunately I’m finally in that place where I can laugh about it and also be grateful.

I am thoroughly grateful for the affliction.  Don’t get me wrong, I’d like a break. I’d like to never go through that again.  I wish I didn’t have autoimmune diseases to manage.  I’m tired of fighting some of the same battles.  I’d like just one year of things being easy and going my way.  But I cannot regret much of it having accumulated the knowledge, experience, peace, and most of all, the wisdom that I would NEVER have acquired had I not been through all of that.

It’s not all roses. It’s still incredibly hard watching my girls wrestle with the emotional damage inflicted on them.  And while I forgave my ex long ago for betraying me, I honestly struggle to forgive him every time my kids cry because of something he did or didn’t do that’s hurt or disappointed them.  Then again, if my hardship and wrestling yielded the fruit it did, I can’t wait to see what He does with theirs. I just wish He’d hurry it up.

No doubt that lady’s vacation was lovely, but we do ourselves SUCH a huge disservice when we associate God’s blessings exclusively with ease and the things that make us happy.  Happiness is conditional, joy is not.  Happiness comes and goes and it’s dependent largely on our circumstances.

If we go through seasons of deep, abiding affliction (that seem to never end) which yields unfathomable, priceless gifts such as endurance, faith, peace and healing (after you feel like you’ve been dragged behind a car), why wouldn’t THAT be a MUCH more precious blessing?  Why would we automatically assume, like Job’s friends (weren’t they awesome?), that it’s a curse, or punishment?

Look, it took me YEARS to get to this place.  Maybe if I’d stopped complaining about it, or the autoimmune diseases that have dogged me ad nauseam, it wouldn’t have taken so long, but I can’t go back and change that.  I was really hoping in the beginning of that particular trial (infidelity and divorce) that it would make me more gentle, or sweet as pie, abounding in faith, etc…..but no.  It’s actually honed my sarcastic and often dark humor.  In my head I SAW the figurative future version of me as a joyful, soft-spoken, gentle servant whose birdies sing and hang the laundry. What I GOT was thicker skin, a quicker wit, and some kind of terminator, determined mentality who’s about as soft-spoken as a brick upside the head.

Someone needs to explain that to me because I didn’t see that coming at all.

My poor kids.  I WANTED them to have the mommy that did their hair and nails, took them shopping, and generally fussed over them.  What they GOT was the mom who occasionally yells, “Will you knock it OFF and get in the CAR so you can go to SCHOOL and learn about THE LOVE OF JESUS?!”  Or the one who talks incessantly about the importance of nutrition.  They are fully sick of hearing about their microbiome.

Yep.  That’s what they got.  They’re welcome.

I mean, they also got the mom who will be at every event they’re in, even if I’m half dead with pneumonia (I don’t even remember the spring theater event at school at all).  They got the mom that will not fight every battle FOR them, but will help them work through how to fight them on their own.  They got the mom who they know, bone deep, will go to the WALL for them, every time, and will ride them until they see their own potential so they have the confidence to do what needs to be done. Because they went through the same trial I did.  They have been refined by the same God, for the same purpose. Why wouldn’t this be the vehicle of their blessing too?  Some days I’m better at all of this and some days I’m just tired, but that’s the goal.

Back in the day when our lives started to implode, I was really resentful. Rightly so, to a degree.  My husband decided he didn’t feel like being married anymore, but wanted to be a rock and roll star with his new girlfriend.  Midlife crises are for reals, people.  Ooookaaay.  So that didn’t sound like MY idea of a good time, but how I interpreted it at the time was, “That’s just super.  He gets to go off and do whatever he wants, and I’m stuck with ALL of the responsibility.  What an ass.” ….Just being honest.   But it was how I articulated it that has hurt me deeply:  I told God one day that I felt like I was getting the short end of the stick.  It’s not that I didn’t want my kids, but I knew that I was going to be the only one raising them.  That is an enormous responsibility, and no matter how precious they are, the burden, the very weight of that calling, was fully placed on my shoulders alone, and I was already broken.  I was terrified to the point of being mentally paralyzed.  Adding to that was the fact that this was a choice made FOR me.  I resented that deeply.  There would be no breaks, no vacations, no me-time, or even someone to entertain the girls so I could make dinner.  He got to keep the house, and the girls and I…lost everything but each other.  MY dreams were a thing of the past because now my ONLY goal was to get my kids to bed alive every night and try to minimize the damage someone else did, and that alone was a 24/7 job for years.  THAT is why I felt like I got the short end of the stick.  The stick I knew would be on fire at both ends, and smoldering in the middle.  In the meantime I was stuck hearing from well-meaning people that God would never give me more than I could handle.  Which is a lie, by the way.

As I look back now, let me tell you what that “short end of the stick” looks like.

It looks like not missing one milestone, challenge, celebration, recital, play, baseball game, heartbreak, or meltdown.  I was there for all of them.  I’ve made costumes and ASB posters.  I celebrated when they’ve won, and comforted when they lost.  I’ve made more cupcakes for school events than I can count.  I got to see and hug them in their class when I’ve been room mom or volunteered to grade papers.  I got to know their amazing, devoted teachers, and their sweet friends.  And their friends’ moms who are wonderful.  I haven’t missed one birthday morning tradition, or failed to make them a cake, pick them up at school, run them to rehearsals or practice.  I’m the one who got to be there to teach them about how faithful God really is even when things looked utterly hopeless (and secretly praying in my own doubt that God wouldn’t make a liar out of me).  What it is to endure, and why that’s important.  What it is to trust Him radically, no matter the outcome, or how many times I fail that test.  And when they REALLY started learning about biblical principles, I got to be there to show them how to apply them as we laid on their bed at night speaking softly in the dimmed light, with crocodile tears in their eyes, working through what they’d learned that day at school.  It’s one thing to hear about forgiving others.  It’s a whole other animal to be called to forgive the parent who hurt you. There are also a lot of things we HAVEN’T been able to do, but at least we were all in the same boat of materialistic denial together.

Fortunately, because God is beyond gracious, my brother and his wife came alongside me and took a lot of that pressure off my shoulders.  Because of them, to a very large degree, all of the above was possible.  I needed practical help; they gave me far more.  They provided us with respite and time.  What humbles me to my core is that they have considered it an enormous blessing.  That’s not something I can ever repay.  Oh, well damn.  Now I’m crying again.

My daughter told me recently about something she did when she was 3.  After I’d tuck them in, turn out the lights and leave the room, she’d kiss her hand.  But before blowing it to me she’d whisper, “Go find Mommy!”  My heart absolutely MELTS every time I think about that.

When my other daughter was 5, she took it upon herself to plan my birthday party.  She’d call family meetings in the laundry room and hand out assignments to my brother and sister-in-law.  She couldn’t quite read or write yet so she made a spreadsheet with pictures.  She called my mom and asked her to bring pudding as a menu option.  Pudding!  I still have that spreadsheet in my fire box.  That’s a keeper.

I didn’t get the short end of the stick. I hit the jackpot.  I was given the highest honor on earth of not only being their mom, but being the one who walked with them through their own personal hell, helping to pull them out the other side.  I could have missed all of that.  Had God allowed me to wallow in that attitude of feeling like I got the short end of the stick, or WORSE – throwing it all away to pursue meaningless, temporary thrills or fleeting happiness – I would’ve missed all those blessings that came in the midst of all that suffering.

Lest you think I’m bragging here, let me assure you that I’ve made monumental mistakes.  Some may have been when I truly wasn’t capable of more, but they’re still not bright and shining moments for me.  I can ALWAYS do better.  Ask my children, I’m sure they’ve compiled a list.  It’s bound to come out in therapy one day.

But add it all up – the tragic blow, the devastating, ongoing heartbreak, the permanent emotional damage, the time spent with God in desperate (often unanswered) prayer, on my face, and the fruit that’s come of all of it – and now being able to look back at how much He’s redeemed, knowing He’s not yet finished….

God unequivocally blessed me with suffering and affliction, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.  I’ve honestly wondered so many times what God wants to do with what we went through.  What am I supposed to say?  Who am I supposed to encourage?  Single moms?  People facing divorce?  But lately the overarching, glaringly obvious message is this:  It is good that You have afflicted me.  No matter how counterintuitive it may seem, the benefits of hardship are legitimate.  That is an incredibly hard, often gut-wrenching truth at times that I still struggle with when I think about the unimaginable horrors in this world.  I simply cannot reconcile those with my human limitations.

If you’re in the midst of a trial, reeling from loss, or drowning in anxiety, it’s not enough to hear that God loves you.  I knew that, but there were many times when the pressure was so extreme I thought my heart was going to literally explode. I could not fathom why God would not only ask me to endure it, but be seemingly silent IN it.  While it’s true that God loves you, when our hearts are so devastated that they’re shattered in a million pieces, or you’re exceedingly anxious about the unknown, and you don’t see how you can possibly endure another hour, you need more than a simple platitude, no matter how true it is.  Name it and claim it theology is a farce, straight up.  Clever topical sermon series delivered by an amusing speaker with frosted, tipped hair dressed in skinny jeans aren’t going to cut it.  If you’re a child of God and yet do not truly appreciate Him as the Creator of all, or the absolute, Almighty Sovereign who is not bound by the laws of time, space, physics, or your limited knowledge, your faith will be rocked and your suffering much worse.  You cannot trust someone you do not know, and you will not know Him by listening to shaky doctrine.  But if you YIELD to Him, and ask Him to change your perspective of your situation, He WILL sustain and strengthen you.  He will NOT let you fall.  And you WILL come out the other side far better than you could possibly imagine.  You might come out forever changed, with deep scars, but you will know Him intimately.  And it will be worth it.

The Cup And The Glory by Greg Harris was the one book beyond the Word that helped me to stand on Truth, and I repeatedly came back to the meat of his message for years.  If you or someone you know is going through a trial, please get this book.  Read it, highlight it, read it again, and trust in the principles of pure Truth and hope he breaks down.