God in pain.

There are so many ways that we experience pain. We can feel it in subtle remarks in conversations, in brazen shouts during a fight, or in the action or reaction of people around us. We can feel it in distance and misunderstanding, in transition, in loss and through grief.

Pain is a way that we know something’s not right.

Just like how it brings an injury to attention within our bodies when we’ve cut our knee or broken a bone, it also screams at us when emotionally and mentally something isn’t right either.

We have a tendency to react poorly to God when we’re in pain, almost as if He’s the one who’s inflicted it. Sometimes, like a kid who’s throwing a tantrum, we yell and scream, pleading and pointing and blaming because it feels like the wrong is so wrong, how could God allow this to happen? That because God is omnipresent and all powerful, He’s personally responsible for allowing this kind of pain into our lives.

Over the past few years I’ve walked through some real, harsh, burning pain (and if I’m honest I’m still walking through it). It’s the kind where your reality can get twisted because at every turn there seems to be more of it. I’ve let it boil and I’ve pushed it down, run away from it and let it hit. I’m not sure there’s a wrong way to do pain unless it involves intentionally damaging yourself and others around you so if you’re wondering if you’re handling pain “correctly” like I often do, I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer here.

Just yesterday I felt a huge rush of pain and immediately didn’t recognize myself as I turned into a rebellious teenager in high school, not making bad choices but not doing the things I know I should be doing. I knew I had to accomplish XYZ and I knew the right thing to do with my time was XYZ but I intentionally wasted the time because I was so angry I was feeling the pain. It was almost as if I was just allowing myself to be irresponsible and I knew in the morning I would come to my senses. I just had to rebel against something.

But the whole time I was angry and in pain I wasn’t mad at God. And a lot of people over the years have asked me if I am or, once they hear my answer, if I’ve thought about that more seriously.

But my answer still hasn’t changed.

I’m not mad at God.

And I’m not mad at you if you are mad at God. I’ve been mad at God. I get mad at God. However, despite how my life looks right now, I’m not angry with Him and I haven’t been angry at Him because of what’s happened to me or around me.

Throughout the past few years and all of the terrible things that have happened, I have felt God in my pain.

My pain has been this blazing sulfur inside me. It burns and it consumes, it knocks me down as soon as I find footing again, and in all of it — the tears, the attacks, the disassociation and re-association — I have felt God reaching out to me and screaming with me. Almost as if He Himself is in just as much pain as I am about what’s going on.

I haven’t felt like I need to push Him out (although I’ve had days of complete shut downs). I haven’t felt like He’s far off watching me suffer and sympathizing from a distance.

I’ve felt Him closer in this pain than any other time in my life.

I’ve tangibly felt His peace wash over me in moments of the worst anxiety.

I’ve seen Him be intricately caring in the day-to-day details of my life.

I’ve understood with such serene clarity the level of strength our relationship has in the face of horror and tragedy. It’s like all the things I’ve ever learned and all of the miracles He’s ever done are almost a backdrop to the revelation of Him being present in my circumstances.

The power of His presence, the power of Him being who He actually is and me realizing it, has transformed my experience of pain. And it’s almost like now that I know that, now that I recognize Him for who He truly is, I have to be near Him. I have to be around Him. Nothing else comes close.

And I’m not saying for you that it has to be this way or you’re doing something wrong because I know. I know pain is pain. I know pain is paramount. Pain can poison and make you dizzy, manipulate you and fester into infection. Pain has the potential to dig you into a thousand different holes all at the same time.

My story isn’t a one-size-fits-all for pain.

But I think maybe there could be someone out there reading this and you think God can’t be in your pain or you’ve never considered the possibility of camaraderie with God in the middle of pain. Pain has become a wedge between you and God when it could’ve been a bridge.

A lot of the most powerful prayers I’ve ever heard prayed have to do with the simplicity of this: You’re not alone and He sees you. Pain has this super tricky way of making us forget what we know as Christians to be true: that God is present and He is good. That God’s love doesn’t get taken away based on behavior and it never intentionally abandons. That even in the worst isolation and fear, His presence is close despite our ability to discern it.

I was talking with someone the other day and telling them about my pain and they pointed out that God was comforting me throughout my experiences. I agreed, but then they followed up with this: “Even when you don’t feel Him, He’s there comforting you.”

What it comes down to for me personally is a surrender to who He is despite where I am. My rights and my ability to assert myself don’t make me any less broken, but a complete surrender to Him and knowing I’m so broken has brought me such certainty in our roles.

I’m human. He’s God.

He’s with me and He’s made it clear He’s for me.

There’s freedom in knowing I can be human and He can be God.

He’s there for me because He’s promised He’s there for me.

I can rely on Him and trust Him and be fully unkempt and have that be ok because at the root of who I am and the root of who I know Him to be, I am seen, loved, and understood and He is strong, safe, and overflowing with love for me.

In my pain He is present, fully understanding it and pulling me through. My pain doesn’t make Him blind. With a willingness on my end, it invites Him in.

So I’m praying for you. Whoever you are.

I’m praying for you that you would be able to discern God in the middle of the pain.

That you would know you have an advocate in Him.

He wants good for you. He is 100% closer to you than you have been aware of.

It’s not God or pain it’s God in pain.

 

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” – C.S. Lewis