Really, God?

Each step felt as though I was walking across a bed of nails. I could feel heat radiating from the spots where blisters had formed on my hands. That’s what I got for gripping my trekking poles too tightly. But I just wanted to alleviate some of the pressure off my feet. In the past five miles I had realized that my boots were too small and therefore caused my toes to jam into the front of the boot. I was pretty sure they were swollen too. A water break was called from the front of our group. I tried to swallow the lump in my throat before tears could form in my eyes. I normally have a pretty high pain tolerance, but this was killing me. Our professor asked us to give us a thumbs up or down based off of how we were feeling. I held my thumb up. Swallow the pain. A few moments later we started hiking again, down, down, down towards the bottom of the canyon. Just two more miles. Just two more miles and I could take my boots off.

God, please, just take some of the pain away. It doesn’t have to be all of it. Please.

Step. Ow!

Step. Gosh dang it!

Step. Crap, crappy, crap!

God...pleeeease.

“No. You never let yourself go through pain.”

What? Wait a second.

Where was the loving God I knew? Where was His comfort? Where was His healing? The lump formed in my throat again but this time I couldn’t stop tears from stinging my eyes. A small cry escaped my lips with my next step and I lifted my eyes from the rocky trail to see if anyone had heard me. All clear.

Fine then, I’ll suffer, my inner two-year-old replied.

∞

It wasn’t until the next morning, after my feet were bandaged up and had soaked in cold water, that I fully realized the truth of God’s answer to my prayer. I don’t let myself go through pain. And when I feel it, I try to band-aid it with positivity. I try to justify it with “finding the good” without ever acknowledging the bad. If you can’t tell, I’m an optimist. And most of the time, I’m grateful for it. Most of the time. Through this experience on a backpacking trip I started to see how I can use optimism as a coping mechanism instead of a perspective. I dwell on any given, painful, situation and excavate it for purpose. For good. For any one thing that I could focus on instead of the pain to tell myself I don’t need to feel the pain.

A month ago today I was on that trip. And I thought that trip was where my “problem of pain” was going to get fixed. Recent circumstances have reminded me that is not true. I have a long way to go. That week opened my eyes to the issue. This week has asked me to apply what I learned. Which then leads me to the question of, what did I learn about addressing my pain on that trip?

Well, I would say one of the biggest things I learned is that I can either let my pain draw me back to God, or I can let it push me away from Him. When I go through difficult times I like to try and figure out the good that the Lord is going to bring out of it while I’m still in the midst of it. It usually comforts me. But it hasn’t been this week. This week as I’ve searched for the “lesson” I’ve questioned God’s goodness--not because I can’t find it, but because it has made me think, “Really, God? You’d allow me to go through this just for some lesson?” It’s been very tempting to hold him at arms length. In past experiences I have avoided inviting God into the pain because I felt I needed to have this beautifully crafted and perfect image of Him in my mind. Why would he want my frustration? And I wish I could remember who this was, but a sweet friend of mine reminded me that God would rather hear from me in my frustration than not hear from me at all.

So that’s what I’ve been doing. I have been coming to Him with very messy, very honest prayers, telling Him my every thought. I’m still frustrated. But as I’ve been choosing to talk with Him in the frustration I’ve realized that the Creator of the Universe is not going to allow a fickle, human emotion to keep Him from loving on and speaking to His child. And that’s exactly what He’s been doing. Every time I say, “God, help me find the purpose of this”, He tells me, “That’s not your job. I already have a purpose for this, I already know the good that will come of this, trust me.” I’m learning over and over that it’s okay to not know the answers. It’s okay for me to sit in the pain for a while. I’m allowed to acknowledge that something straight up sucks. Now matter how much I want to, I don’t need to try to fast forward through the pain because God will sustain me through it just as he sustained Christ through his suffering.

Each step might be painful. Each step may feel like it constricts my heart and leaves it blistered. But trying to go around it will only be a temporary fix. When I was on that trip I thankfully had two pairs of shoes. I wound up wearing my Chacos (hiking sandals) for a couple days so I didn’t have to wear the boots that were too small for me. But after a while, those shoes started giving me blisters in new spots and led to sunburnt feet.While it was a temporary respite from the pain of the boots, I still had to face some type of pain in the end. It was a matter of choosing which pain was worse. I’ve personally decided that delayed processing will cause me more pain and affect more of my life than if I just addressed it in the moment.

Now, I could go into all the benefits of suffering and “going through the fire”. But it’s not what I need to hear right now. Maybe it’s not what you need to hear right now either. It’s an important topic, but for another day.

For today I want y’all to hear that God is not good because He brings good from our pain. He is good because that is who He is. It’s His middle name you could say. I want you to hear that you don’t have to assign a purpose to your suffering. God already has one and He will be faithful to see that through in your life. Finally, I’d encourage you to make a choice for the pain you’re in right now. Will you allow the pain to draw you to the Lord, or push you away from Him?

Keep fighting the good fight,

“M”