Hail.
Of the advice I have received in recent weeks, there is some, a particular vein, that rings not true within me, and puzzles me as I both know that it is a widely accepted train of thought in our culture, as I don't know that it has been ever before in places where honor and virtue were valued.
And that is the advice to have a nice long wallow, to feel the extent of this pain to its utmost, to wander in despair. To not feel as though I need to be okay too quickly.
I've never liked the story "Wuthering Heights," and that approach strikes me as peculiarly Heathcliff and Kathy-ish. Aside from the fact that it's difficult to find a misty English moor about which to wander in desperation and despair in Texas, it is I should hope, also out of my character to do so.
Am I in the middle of a trial that is sometimes sad and confusing? Yes. But I am sustained not by exploring the hurt and sorrow I feel, nor by re-imagining in an endless replay loop what might have been done differently to achieve a different result. I am sustained rather by a continued commitment to reflecting upon the character of God, King, Creator, and reconciler of our souls.
The grace to continue turning my mind to the truth that:
The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.
That nothing shall separate me from the love of Christ.
That in all things, He works for the good of those who love him.
That those who sow in tears shall reap in songs of joy.
That those who trust in the Lord, shall not be put to shame.
That we have a Savior who knows intimately the struggles of this mortal flesh. For He put aside His glory, to bear our struggles, and our shame, that He might bring us as much loved children to His Father.
It never occurred to me before this Sunday, when a preacher mentioned it, that Jesus was 30 when He began his ministry. Older than I am currently.
It's so tempting when one hurts to believe that no one else has ever experienced the same depth of heartache or sorrow before. That's not to diminish the amount of sorrow that can exist. But it would be false to give myself wholly to that belief, for I know that Jesus is the high priest who can sympathize with our struggles.
Beyond the truth of those things, I don't think I could bear to wallow in despair out of my firm belief that one's life should be outward facing in the service of God and others. To my shame, this is not always what I achieve, but I trust that God will continue to show me how to live.
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Why does that train of thought, to feel to the extreme, seem so common in our society? And is it really beneficial? Does it lead to more honor or more virtue? Does it build up good character, or simply lead to intemperance?
8.12.2009
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4 comments:
I agree with you, for the most part. I don't think it makes any sense to make a decision to wallow in sadness. I do think that there are some people who cannot help but do so, and simply "feel to the extreme" by nature (some of the better poets, I think, are such people). To will yourself into such a state, however, is purposeless and painful.
We are all different in how we deal with sorrow. I think it is right for all of us, however, to keep Christ in mind as we work through those times.
We should all want to face outward and serve God and others. On our path towards that end, though, he might take us through some times where we feel deeply sad, and who's to say how long such a time might last.
So I guess what I'm saying is that God also uses periods of intense pain and suffering. We shouldn't try to avoid them. Nor should we seek them out. We should just trust that he's working in us.
There were a lot of "shoulds" in that statement!
Does any of that make sense?
Also - Wuthering Heights is one of my all-time favorites. I always thought we had similar taste in books. Maybe this is just a freak outlier.
Loving your posts.
To be fair Emily, I do like one chapter of Wuthering Heights - and for the beauty of that one chapter, I find I'm able to forget the rest of it.
Sara, yet again your post is insightful -- and, for me, particularly ironic right now. Today is my last day for this hospital chaplaincy internship, and one of the things they've kept stressing in our classes is the need to "be with someone" in sadness, etc., and to encourage them to "explore their grief," etc. And the supervisor does the same with us. For me, being one who also doesn't naturally wallow, it's been quite annoying at times -- it seems sometimes like folks want to make me wallow! So, having been ingrained in this for 10 weeks, my apologies if it seemed like I was ever doing the same. :)
And so I've also been wrestling with just what I think of all this. And, perhaps like Emily, I can sort of see both sides. Yes, it is great to look to Christ for our hope and our strength -- and sometimes, I think there is a tendency today to focus on feelings so much that we become manipulative or disregard God's ability to turn swords into ploughshares, water into wine and tears into fields of joy. A nagging question I've been asking all summer is whether we might sometimes risk selling Christ's healing power too short -- so convinced by our secular age that miracles can't be obvious, that we don't even give them a chance. And healing -- whether of body, mind or spirit -- is a miracle, whether direct from God, through human hands or loving hearts.
But at the same time, that Christ we look to *was* an Incarnate God, and so is the greatest demonstration that we are free to feel sad at times, angry at times (even with rambling friends! heck, even with God!), confused at times. Jesus wept. Jesus pleaded with his Father that the cup might pass from him. Jesus expressed his angst when that cup did not pass -- "Why have you forsaken me?" And then, in the psalms, we see the whole gamut of emotions expressed to God -- to think of the radical genius of the Word, that psalms as mournful as 22 and 88 can stand beside the joy and peace of 23 and 91 as true testimony to our relationship with God!
So maybe, at the end, the writer of Ecclesiastes is right -- that there are times for laughter and tears, times for sighs and fears -- but that at all times, we know God is near. And what's more, we know that God feels the same -- for God, too, has been human and felt all that we can feel. And like Emily alluded to, sometimes bringing this Incarnate God to others might mean -- indeed, might require -- bringing our whole selves to God. Laughter and tears and all. Neither pressured to grief nor feigning false joy. But just being the images of God that we are; the children whom God loves in all our crazy ways and insane days.
And my many apologies for rambling yet again... I promise not to turn this into a long sermon every day! :) But, thank you for giving me a chance to work out my own wrestling a bit, too!
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