job 16
In the introduction to A Grief Observed, CS Lewis is described as “a man emotionally naked in his own Gethsemane” while mourning the death of his beloved wife. Yet in all that grief, Lewis encountered God in the process—by keeping his heart open to the pain of it.
Lewis describes this openness to suffering in The Problem of Pain, saying that “pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
Those like myself and Lewis who have survived personal trauma and experienced recovery have learned to embrace a measure of suffering that we could not endure in the past. In fact, that is precisely what recovery is: facing our painful past by looking it square in the face—and realizing that it is not too much for God, or our close friends and family, to bless and redeem.
Recovery and healing mean learning to suffer well by facing the problem of evil directly and honestly, so that we can be roused by the pain enough to hear the kindness of God in the midst. And in a world that is experiencing so much collective pain, the call to be Christian is to follow the trauma survivor and their therapists and stop avoiding our own suffering.
We are meant to neither explain it away nor draw a stick-figure God with easy answers but to follow the Great Survivor, Jesus Christ, into God’s renewed future. For the only path to resurrection joy is through death and sorrow. The way to the garden is through the grave. -Preston Hill
Lewis describes this openness to suffering in The Problem of Pain, saying that “pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
Those like myself and Lewis who have survived personal trauma and experienced recovery have learned to embrace a measure of suffering that we could not endure in the past. In fact, that is precisely what recovery is: facing our painful past by looking it square in the face—and realizing that it is not too much for God, or our close friends and family, to bless and redeem.
Recovery and healing mean learning to suffer well by facing the problem of evil directly and honestly, so that we can be roused by the pain enough to hear the kindness of God in the midst. And in a world that is experiencing so much collective pain, the call to be Christian is to follow the trauma survivor and their therapists and stop avoiding our own suffering.
We are meant to neither explain it away nor draw a stick-figure God with easy answers but to follow the Great Survivor, Jesus Christ, into God’s renewed future. For the only path to resurrection joy is through death and sorrow. The way to the garden is through the grave. -Preston Hill
There is no better biblical example of how our words can be stinging rather than a salve than in the story of Job. After losing his children, his wealth, and his health, his friends immediately showed up and cried with him. In fact, when they initially realized the depth of Job’s pain, they actually mirrored him—wailing and mourning beside their friend.Neuroscience reveals that our brains cannot handle seeing someone who is hurting and therefore, we will naturally tend and bend towards saying something that we think will offer consolation, something we believe will fix them, or balance the scales of their grief. When, all too often, the words we speak end up adding more pain, rather than subtracting it.
But then, they opened their mouths.
When they tried to explain his pain, they turned from being comforters into perpetrators of hurt.
At one point in their long-winded explanations and blame-game, Job exclaims, “…you are miserable comforters, all of you (Job 16:2 NIV)!” How many of us can relate to that? We have been in the lowest point in our lives, only to have a well-meaning friend compound our hurt with poor reasoning, or some pithy platitude. -Brian From
But then, they opened their mouths.
When they tried to explain his pain, they turned from being comforters into perpetrators of hurt.
At one point in their long-winded explanations and blame-game, Job exclaims, “…you are miserable comforters, all of you (Job 16:2 NIV)!” How many of us can relate to that? We have been in the lowest point in our lives, only to have a well-meaning friend compound our hurt with poor reasoning, or some pithy platitude. -Brian From
