trusting in the darkness

Can we know God’s presence as deeply in our pain as we can when things are good?

I’ll admit it is easier to feel blessed when all is going well, but it is in the dark valleys where we need his presence most. So much bad teaching and a reliance on “cherry-picked” promises from Scripture have conspired against us knowing his love in the darkness. Our prayers go to God as we ask him to take away our trouble, anxiety, fear, grief, and pain, instead of recognizing him inside of those things with us. Recognizing God with us in such moments is how the light comes. Don’t miss that part of the journey

Here’s an email exchange I had recently with someone struggling to know they are loved while battling chronic illness and pain. These are champions of our faith. It is easy to believe when all is well. The real challenge comes when darkness settles in. Can we relax into his presence then? This is my encouragement to her, and I hope it helps some others.

Finding our way to the light may not be easy, but the process will transform us in wonderful ways.

I had long-haul COVID. I have never experienced such darkness. I never gave up on God, but I wondered often if she had given up on me.  In Jan 2023, as I was beginning to find my normal life again, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  In April, while undergoing radiation, I was diagnosed with a lung disease, the same lung disease that I watched my mother endure for 15 years. I have struggled so much, crying out to God constantly, yet feeling a void between us.

Why did God allow all of this? How could He love me? I have cried so many tears and begged God to fix me, to speak to me, to let me find Him. I have judged Him as unfair to me. I told Him the other day that I thought I knew Him as He was, but I realize I don’t.  I was a religious woman for many, many years, and I thought I had begun to break through, but I’ve seen that just this week, I’m trying to qualify Him in circumstances, not His character. Isn’t that what religion taught me?

My response:

I’m so sorry for all the physical ailments you’ve had to battle and for the loss of your mom. It’s got to be hard navigating the same disease that your mom went through.

Your struggle could be some religious conditioning or misguided expectations about how God wants to engage you.  Suffering can throw us off-balance and leave us with unresolvable questions.

First, I don’t believe God “allowed” any of this. He didn’t cause or allow the long COVID or cancer; it’s just what life dealt out to you. We live in a fallen world, and difficult things happen to all of us, whether they are physical, relational, or emotional. If we can’t hear God say, “I’m sorry this happened to you,” because he caused or allowed it, where do we go from there?  I don’t know all the answers to how God helps us navigate our needs, but I know he is bigger than anything that happens to us.

I was diagnosed with incurable cancer eighteen months ago, but I know that didn’t change anything about God’s love for me, or that my every breath is in his hands. My life may not last as long now as I thought it might, but we really don’t know any of that, do we? I could die in an accident tomorrow, so we just don’t know. And what is death anyway, except the fulfillment of redemption I have longed for all my life? What we can do is find joy in each day we have, even as we battle the physical ailments and the mental struggles they bring to us. I promise he is with you, but this suffering will allow you to look deeper and find him in ways that will change who you are and make you more like him, much more compassionate and dependent on him.

Don’t let God’s “fixing you” become the test of his love. Just let him walk with you, through the fears, and hold you in your tears.  I imagine myself crawling on his lap sometimes, knowing he’s got me. Sometimes I feel something when that happens, and sometimes I don’t, but it’s true nonetheless. Focus less on loss, because for all of us, the outer body is wasting away, but the inner heart is being renewed day by day.  Let God be with you in this journey, whether it leads to healing or to navigating the disease with him. You’re right, he doesn’t change.

You have known him in the past; it’s just that your current circumstances have taken you beyond what your relationship with him could bear.  This is the time to deepen that relationship. Ask him, “What is it about your love, Father, that I don’t know that would let me be at rest in what’s happening?”  Don’t look for a list of lessons to learn here; just look for your awareness of him to grow so he’s greater than the losses you have suffered.  This is a process.  Change doesn’t happen quickly or easily, but there is peace for you, even in the midst of what you’re going through.

Where do you best sense his presence with you? In a walk in the woods? Sitting in a garden or a favorite chair? Listening to worship music? Find a place where you are able to be more aware of him and let that grow.

Another question: You have a cancer for which there is no cure.  I have a lung disease for which there is no cure. My lungs have been damaged; they won’t heal. I just try to keep them from worsening.  Lately, I’ve been waking up with the reality of it all.  I choose to trust God as I know Jesus walks through me in every moment and what I experience. But it’s hard experiencing my body struggling along.  I have a cough every day and will until God heals me.  How do you set your mind amidst health issues that won’t go away?

I’m listening now to your podcast, Observations from a Pit, and these words you said are sitting with me. You talked about trying to get instead of asking Jesus what He wanted to give you every day. When the thoughts come at me, I try to get out of them. I pray, I sing songs in my head—I’m trying to get. Then you talked about telling Jesus something when your pain was so great: “This is on you. I can’t handle it.” I’ve been trying to get a revelation of His love. I’ve been trying to get unblocked from whatever it is that’s keeping me from just being loved. I’ve looked for Him in all the wrong places, and I’ve expected much of myself and Him, I believe.  I just want to sit in His love, not sure how that looks though.

And then this, “Trying to pray the right prayer to get God to move,” and you talked about self-analysis. Yes, plenty of that in these last 3+ years and plenty of trying to pray the right prayer/incantation and think the right way and do the right thing to get a revelation of His love.

Thank you… I’m seeing some things here.

My response:

I’m glad you are seeing more clearly.  Learning to walk with Jesus amid pain and disappointment is not an easy task.  Our view of God is so warped toward our own comfort instead of letting him come to us in the way he desires and walk us through the tough places.  I got this from a friend last week, and loved it:

Don’t worship the mountain top! Strangely, freedom is found in the struggle leading there. The struggle that leads us to a different kind of dependency, not on ourselves but on the one who joins us in the struggle, in the valley, the dark and lonely place, the scary places.  His presence becomes our mountain top, rarely seen as it is, cherished by those who know it as they become fearless.

He gets it, and I’m glad you’re learning that too.  His love is there for you every morning, perhaps not in the package in which you’re expecting it, but he can be no less than absolute love toward you. When we don’t see that, it’s because our perception of his love needs to adjust.  He’s big enough to help you get it and find his freedom even where life hurts.

Thank you for taking the time to respond.  I’m having a very difficult time just knowing He is with me and taking care of me. I have lost sight of His love and don’t know how to get back there, quite honestly. I try to tell myself that He loves me, but I’m having difficulty at times just speaking to Him.  I am upset with myself that I can’t just “get it”…I try to cry out to Him when the scary thoughts hit, but I still get so overwhelmed. I don’t know what His love looks like when the scary thoughts and the anxieties hit me. I often wonder if something happened to my brain with Covid, as it’s often just hard to locate my beliefs and my confidence in Him and His love and care.

I’m so tired, Wayne, it’s been almost 4 years of this, and I’m weary and tired.  My counselor told me last week that I needed to give up my rights, and I have done that this week.  I will do anything to just be confident in His love for me, but I’m really struggling.  I don’t know that fear of dying as much as I fear living like this.  I just want to be at rest to dwell in His love when things hit. When another thing goes wrong with my body or the stuck fight or flight hits me or the awakenings to hard thoughts and stress, I just don’t know how to rest in His love. I don’t even know how to locate His love at these times. I don’t know how to believe and receive my way out of this mental/emotional/spiritual struggle. It’s been a very long road.

My response:

I am so sorry you’re dealing with cancer and the coughing that reminds you of it every day.  I, like you, believe in a God who heals, but I don’t think there’s anything I can do to make that happen.  I do talk to him about it, but I have not put my hope there. My hope is in him, as my Father and I know that every breath is in his hands.  I have no idea how long I’ll live, but no one really does. Someone could be in a car accident today. I have had many friends die young, who were God-loving people.  So I know God doesn’t owe me healing, nor is there anything I can do to procure it.

So, I simply live each moment in the joy of knowing I’m cared for by him.  I do not fear death; in fact, I look forward to seeing him and myself in the fullness of who I really am, and the eternal life that God has prepared for us. I look at life here as being in the lobby of a great theater, waiting for the real show to begin. Death is the door into the theater where the real stuff begins. I may be a bit weird, but every time someone I love dies, my first thought is, “I wish I knew what they know now.”

That doesn’t mean I’m trying to die. I take every precaution to embrace the life God’s given me here and those I love until the day when he invites me into the theater.  That calms and comforts me. The anticipation is like flying home to see Sara after I’ve been away on a trip for a couple of weeks.  Someday, we will get to see him face-to-face.

Paul wrote, “Though the outer body is wasting away, the inner man is being renewed day by day.”  Our physical bodies are not who we really are. They are simply a temporary dwelling for what really makes you, you. I look at my cancer as a reality that he and I get to walk with now.  As I do, I find he shapes my heart in new ways because of this challenge. I don’t believe he gave me cancer or even “allowed it.” It’s the rain that falls on the just and the unjust. Stuff happens. Life in a broken world is a struggle, and I get to live in it with him now. He can heal me any time he wants, or he can use this to invite me into the theater.  It’s in his hands, not mine, and I’m content to leave it there.

I’m coming to realize that His presence with me and his care bring comfort to my soul, but my body still feels the discomfort of what it’s dealing with, whether it’s gut issues, a difficult cough, or the dumping of hormones when the fight or flight kicks in, or just the tired, weary body. After all, people still experience chronic pain. I think I thought He would comfort my body. And when it didn’t happen well, I think I took that as some type of rejection.  But then I see that it’s not the way things work in this broken world.  We still suffer, and I’m not a great sufferer.

I’m learning (very slowly it seems) at these moments when my body is weary, I try to imagine myself being held in his arms.  It takes me back to memories with my own kids as they suffered with an earache or an illness.  I could hold them, but they still had the pain.  My holding them comforted them somehow.

This morning I woke lying in bed, talking to him about issues with my gut that I’m experiencing, and in my mind I heard “I’ve got you.  I’m in this with you.”  I’m not sure what that looks like, but I received it.

Instead of trying to pray away whatever tries to overwhelm you, look for him inside of it. That’s the best way for him to unravel its power over you and deal with it however he deems best.

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For those who are in the midst of this kind of struggle yourself, consider reading He Loves Me, asking his Spirit to set you at rest in his love, and let the religious teachings of performance drain out of your body so that you can behold him inside your pain.