For about a year I’ve been looking for every-day gifts, the little (and not-so-little) things that with familiarity I take for granted and stop seeing. Ann Voskamp hosts a link-up every Monday for those who are doing the same. She has challenged readers to see the gifts in what she calls “the hard graces” – those things that hurt and on the surface appear to be the opposite of a gift.
I have to be honest with you. This is hard. Good, but hard. Counting every-day gifts isn’t a miracle cure for depression or pain or brokenness. I can’t bring myself to thank God for bad things, though I can and do thank God for the good things that come out of the bad.
- I miss my daughter, especially during the holidays, but I can thank God for new empathy. I can thank God for the way her life and death connect me with friends who have sick children or whose children have died.
- I can’t thank God for my son’s physical issues, but I can thank God for the things my son does that my daughter never did. I can thank God for middle-of-the-night snuggles for comfort after a scary dream, and for falling asleep cuddling him.
- I can’t count depression as a gift, but I can count a gift the deeper understanding of Job, Naomi, and David. I am thankful for medicines and vitamins and sunshine and the unconditional love of a spouse no matter how bad I feel (or act).
To me, it is a great disrespect to call something bad “good.” It minimizes the real suffering and the ongoing permanent loss experienced by those of us to whom bad things happen. (And let’s be honest – no-one gets through life without something bad happening.) I respect greatly those who can look at their pain and thank God for it. But I also respect those who can’t, but who recognize ways that God redeems those bad things and brings good out of them.
It is arrogance in the extreme to identify one of those good things that came from bad and say, “See? That is why the bad thing happened.” I don’t believe we will ever know the fullness of the why, not in this life. Though good things came in and through the brokenness of my daughter’s body, I will not say that those things are why she was born into a broken body. I dare not. God alone knows why, and one of the lessons of the book of Job is that God doesn’t tell us why.
This doesn’t stop me from sobbing “Why God? Why????” when life hurts. It doesn’t stop me from hating how broken the world is, and how broken our bodies and our inner selves are. But the not knowing will not stop me from fighting against that brokenness and doing what I can to heal and mend and bind together.
Maybe what God wants us to do with our pain is to see it for what it is, and work against it.
I love this song by Shaun Groves. It has become my prayer in the brokenness. (He recorded it for another blogger, but we can all eavesdrop!)
Kingdom Coming for Sophie at BooMama.net from Shaun Groves on Vimeo.
Oh God, what do we see and hear?
Your kingdom coming
Oh God, what do we see and fear?
Your kingdom coming
Let it come to us
Let it come through us
CHORUS:
‘Til the sword is spared
And the bread is shared
‘Til the dying’s done
Let your kingdom come
‘Til the rich ones give
And the poor ones live
‘Til the weak are strong
Let your kingdom come
Oh, God, what do we pray down here?
Your kingdom coming
Let it come to us
Let it come through us
CHORUS
Mercy come, justice come
Healing come, peace, Lord, come
Your will be done through us on earth
CHORUS
Oh God, what do we need down here
Your kingdom coming
Words & Music by Shaun Groves © 2011 Simplicity Street Music/ASCAP
Counting #608-623 of 1000 gifts with Ann today.
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I’m struggling to be thankful at all today. The pain of missing my daughter is overwhelming. I just want to be angry and stay angry at my loss.
I think sometimes we just need to feel the grief and pain. We need to name it and experience it because it’s real. Trying to hide or bury it just hurts us more.
You nailed it with this line… “it is a great disrespect to call something bad “good.”
If I should see my deformed leg as good because it shows God’s love for me because I still have it (yes, I have been told that), then shouldn’t we all say “It is good” when we see gray hair or wrinkles and throw away our dye and cream?
Janet Oberholtzer recently posted..An Annotated Wish List For Changes by God
Indeed. Why do we run around yelling “PRAISE GOD!!!” when things go well, and yet when things go badly those same people are silent? Because bad things are BAD! Yes, God can work in and through and in spite of them. But that doesn’t change the fact that bad things are bad.
Oh Joy … yes. This is truth, hard but beautiful truth. It’s not as simple as making a list and experiencing freedom from sorrow or pain or depression. It’s not about calling bad things good. We minimize the greatness of God when we attempt to make His ways fit into our understanding. There is great, profound hurt and loss in this life. The gaping holes in our hearts don’t really heal, they scar over. The scar isn’t the same as healing. It’s ugly, it’s different from whole flesh. But the scars are reminders, maybe? Perhaps the list we could make is the one of our scars … the broken parts of us, knit together again, but knit differently.
Teri Lynne Underwood recently posted..Devotions, Quiet Time, Personal Bible Study. Is It Really Necessary?
I like this thought that perhaps the scars are a sort of list. I have seen God in different ways and learned different things about God in the painful things, and so there are good things in the pain. So maybe the scars can be reminders of those revelations.
Maybe it’s our idea of healing that’s wrong. We usually think of healing as being perfect again, or just like we were before… and I guess sometimes that happens. But usually, scars are evidence of healing. In fact, if we’re talking about bodies, if something doesn’t form a scar that’s evidence that it ISN’T healing!
You are right, making a list of gratitudes doesn’t take away our sorrow or bring freedom from pain or depression. No it’s not a cure. However, it does help me refocus my mind taking it off of me and placing it on Him. It does keep me from ‘bleeding to death’ in my sorrow and pain.
It’s very easy to get stuck in a rut of destructive thinking. Finding things to be thankful is a very healthy exercise. But I don’t want anyone to expect more than is reasonable, you know?
I understand what you’re saying and I appreciate so much that you shared it.
Cherie recently posted..Comfort
And thank you, too, for permission to cry and grieve. I, do feel that in general I’ve been expected by others to ‘get over it’ – to heal and move on.
Cherie recently posted..Comfort
I LOVE this.
When I was grieving a really hard year a very wise person told me at we are to give thanks IN everything, not FOR everything.
We live in a world filled with sin, so not everything is good. Rape, murder, abuse, those aren’t gifts. they are sins. They do damage. God can work in them and through them, but they are not From him.
The things we inflict on others are not from God, they are not God’s will, and they break God’s law. Because God is God, He can bring good things out of that evil — Jesus’s resurrection is the greatest example of this — and is a powerful and sustaining hope.
such a precious post…thanks for sharing…helps me reflect on the current “pains” I am experiencing. may the God of all comfort continue to overwhelm you in this journey!
Charissa Steyn recently posted..Top 10 Reasons Why I’m {slowly} Learning to Love Change
joy,
thank you for the “permission” here to let hard things hurt. period. i’ve been struggling with a loss that is trivial in comparison to the loss you & others have endured, but it has been a very painful one for me, nonetheless. a loss of great freedom that i’ve always known. and so it’s been a journey of much grieving. and i’m still trying to discover my personal line between healthy grief & self-absorption.
but i’ve thought MANY times that all i need to do is make a thankful list of every-day gifts. maybe THAT will help me avoid the strong pulls toward self absorption. and i do think what cherie said would hold true for me as well — that it would likely help me to keep my thoughts and perspective in check. but i REALLY appreciate this list concept:
“I can’t bring myself to thank God for bad things, though I can and do thank God for the good things that come out of the bad.”
i heard a mssg a while ago on habakkuk 3. and i appreciated that he pointed out that we can find joy IN the suffering, not joy FOR the suffering. and that the joy we find is your list concept — thankful for what God does DESPITE the bad.
but what i appreciated most is that he pointed out that sorrow & grief are not incompatible with joy — habakkuk did not get rid of his sorrow and grief in order to say thank you to God! . . . and that freedom to grieve is exactly the liberating reminder that i need. the reminder that i don’t HAVE to like my circumstances. i don’t HAVE to rejoice in painful journeys. but i do need to trust. and i can experience HIS definition of joy amidst them. and if i can see no good that has come from the pain, i find much joy and rest for my soul in the freedom to simply let the floodgates of tears flow freely before Him. a joy for the intimacy.
again, thank you for the reminder that being thankful doesn’t mean being without pain. truly appreciated this, joy.
tanya@truthinweakness recently posted..flying shoes & dysfunctional status quos
“i find much joy and rest for my soul in the freedom to simply let the floodgates of tears flow freely before Him. a joy for the intimacy.” This is beautiful, Tanya.
Tanya, Discussion here on this is rich and beautiful. I’m finding this to be helpful. Thank you for sharing.
Cherie recently posted..Comfort
“But the not knowing will not stop me from fighting against that brokenness and doing what I can to heal and mend and bind together. ” Amen and amen and amen.
Megan at SortaCrunchy recently posted..the life low(er) carb
People can be cluelessly brutal when dealing with other people in pain. It’s been amazing some of the comments I’ve gotten from caring people who are wanting to help in the midst of my struggling with cancer and recent surgery. I certainly believe that God does use the bad stuff in my life. I did like what one of my pastor friends said. He asked if I had had cancer before. When I said no he said “well here’s another crappy experience that God will use in weird ways like all the other crappy experiences in your life.” And he’s right about that for sure. I’m still processing everything but I have seen God use the circumstances. But I’m so thankful that God can meet me in my pain and brokenness and the circumstances that are out of control and that I can just be and not have to pretend that everything is wonderful and marvelous. Like Tanya I love the scripture in Habakkuk 3. I am thankful for His life all around me in the midst of the pain.
I think sometimes the christian community wants to wish pain and evil and suffering away by downplaying or ignoring it’s importance in our lives. Several years ago when the “inner healing” movement was big I found it especially disturbing that people were wanting others to picture Jesus going back into their past and basically changing the circumstances and remberance of the things people went through. To me that was so disrespectful of the people and what they suffered. I do believe that because of the things I’ve suffered I’m kinder, more compassionate and a variety of other things. But I don’t believe that God is a cosmic sadist and the only way I could learn those things is by suffering. I do believe we live in a fallen world with other fallen people and crap happens. I don’t think we’ll fully understand until God wipes the tears from our eyes and we finally know His real peace. In that I do find comfort and hope. I too love Ann’s book and keep a gratitude journal.
Linda B. recently posted..Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep….
YES – the things we go through do shape us and change us, and often for the better. I totally agree with you though that trying to go back and change those things is incredibly disrespectful. I’m horrified, actually.
“I think sometimes the christian community wants to wish pain and evil and suffering away by downplaying or ignoring it’s importance in our lives.”
I think that’s a human response. It’s hard to see people who are hurting and not be able to help them… so if we can’t help them, then how else can we make ourselves feel better than by expecting and telling them to feel better! ‘Excuse me, your brokenness is making me feel bad, so can you just get over it now?’ kind of thing…
Christians SHOULD know better, and often they do… but sometimes they don’t.
Joy,
Thank you for the reminder about the thankful list. I started my blessing list the beginning of last year but through the hard stuff last year ~ it went to the way side. It it a new year and I need to pick the list up again and start it once again. Thank you for the reminder!
Jen
Jen recently posted..Looking Ahead
Joy, I cannot thank you enough for this good, hard, truthful writing today. And these comments? Spectacularly thoughtful, honest, real. Scripture does not teach that we must thank God for the ugliness of life in a broken, fallen world. You are right – it is disrespectful and it is overly deterministic to thank God FOR the hard, awful stuff that comes to all of us in one form or another. We can continue to be thankful in the struggle, we can consistently look for small rays of light and offer thanks and praise for those, we can acknowledge that God is God and we are not and that we will not find the answers to all of our questions this side of eternity. We cannot see ahead to the good that will come from the redemptive hand of God in the midst of loss and pain. And we cannot put that good into some kind of cosmic scale and say that everything balances out. It does not. NO AMOUNT OF GOOD can make up for the loss of your sweet girl. It’s a painful scar and a permanent part of who you are. Even so, you are learning to say thank you for the gifts you do find in this journey on the other side of her death. What we do know from scripture is this amazing truth: God walks with us through every single tear, through all the gut-wrenching sorrow. This is the gift of the Incarnation for me – Jesus truly knows our sorrow. Much of the time – maybe even most of the time, that is enough. “Give me Jesus…” indeed.
Diana Trautwein recently posted..The Power of a Good Romance
I want to put this in neon lights: “We cannot put that good into some kind of cosmic scale and say that everything balances out. It does not. NO AMOUNT OF GOOD can make up for the loss of your sweet girl. It’s a painful scar and a permanent part of who you are.” Thank you for writing that, Diana.
I love this, and I love you. Happy birthday!
Genevieve @ Turquoise Gates recently posted..The best way to start a week
Joy – I love you. So many times I catch myself saying, “its ok I had the miscarriage- her heart is now healed”. But dang it, I still want that baby girl in my arms and not the way I left her on the delivery bed. And to say, “thank you God for taking her” gets caught in my throat – cause I’m a MOM – I’m supposed to care and nurture – here and now. NOW!
My list of 1000 gifts is seen in the every day cause I can’t pull up the hurt and sadness I feel at a simple NO from Him – even now. And you are so right – I love that you mentioned Job. He was never told why – how our human hearts just need it and to lean on that faith, He is still good even in this … as much as I believe that its still hard for me to count hurt as blessing.
stef layton recently posted..multitude 613-629
Your words ring powerful and true here, thank you. I think it is disrespect. Reminds me of a verse in Isaiah that says Woe to those who call darkness light and light darkness, who call evil good and good evil. that just makes us warped and gives us illusion. There is a way to be thankful, but we don’t have to thank God forcibly or robotic-ly for what is not good.
I just recently argued w/ someone about bittersweet or haunting songs, which I deem as beautiful in their truth with my experience of the world as beauty and pain, and she deemed “not happy” and therefore bad. I disagree with that perspective. I think it can be holy to mourn, and right to grieve loss.
Joy, what wise and honest words. I’m currently reading John Piper’s book Suffering and the Sovereignty of God. Much of what you say is echoed there. Real pain is to be acknowledged, not brushed away. Thank you for being an ally to those suffering — and we all suffer in some way, at some time.
Sarah recently posted..what one week of #commit2write has taught me
Hey: my family is going through a crisis right now. I can’t say much more for a couple of months, but I can say that even though it is the suckiest of the suck, I can see the hand of God. The Chinese word for crisis is composed of two characters. On top is the sign for danger; beneath it is the sign for opportunity.
Most Christians don’t know how to have a crisis. No…I’m not being judgy. We usually do one of two things: we say it’s God’s will and force ourselves into an outwardly sweet acceptance, remaining unaffected at the deeper level of the spirit. People who have a crisis in this manner are usually after comfort and peace, which isn’t a bad thing necessarily.
Or we reject the crisis, fighting against it until we become cynical and defeated or suffer a loss of faith. People who do this are usually after justice….totally understandable.
I think there is a third way to have a crisis: the way of waiting: creating a painfully honest and contemplative relationship with one’s own depths, with God in the deep center of one’s soul. People who chose this brave route are after soul development. (I believe, afterall, that our souls are so much more than a thing to save)
People who choose this way find the threshold: the epiphany, the creative moment within the crisis. Like your writing, Joy. It is not an easy way, but it draws you further into the Kingdom of God. It can see like a storm, or a violent assault, but it is actually a doorway, beckoning us to leave old ways of life and ego and enter into a closer relationship with God and our soul.
I hesitate to even write this because some people really suffering right now may want to bitchslap me (totally understandable, for this type of truth requires a fullness of time). I recommend those of you who want to delve deeper into this read SoulMaking by Alan Jones – it has been helpful to me.
LOVE TO YOUUUUU!!!!!
Sarah recently posted..And the soul felt its worth….
I have no words, but wanted you to know I was here and reading.
Christin @ Joyful Mothering recently posted..Four Biblical Spiritual Disciplines
Your post fits in with some of my own reading and struggles with suffering over the past 33 years. Nancy Guthrie (two of her children died in infancy) knows about suffering. She has written many books about this topic. Probably the two best (in my estimate) are:
Be Still, My Soul: Embracing God’s Purpose and Provision in Suffering: 25 Classic and Contemporary Readings on the Problem of Pain (Wheaton, Ill. Crossway, 2010)
Hearing Jesus Speak Into Your Sorrow (Carol Stream, Ill. Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2009)
That first one I am currently reading and the authors speak about how to view pain and suffering throughout the ages. Yesterday I read Joni Earickson Tada’s section “God’s Plan A.” It affected me enough to blog about it yesterday.
Joy, thanks again, for opening her heart and sharing with us the reality of life in pain and in joy. Blessings in Christ.
Rich recently posted..Suffering: Plan A or Plan B?
Amen! Too many people try to fix or explain away the pain for us, but to see it as it really is, in all it’s horror, and still find things to thank God for… that is a sacrifice of praise and makes all the difference!
I was having dinner with a friend last night and working through the tangles mess of gratitude lists and the pain of the world, we finally came to this: sometimes all we can really hold onto is that the world is in fact broken and one day will in fact be made whole. Lists or no, sometimes that’s all we have. There’s more hope and honesty in that than I imagine some people realize. Blessings, love, and prayers, friend.