Peeling Back the Layers of our Complex Pain: Our past is important, but not determinative
Angry people are sometimes sinfully angry; and sometimes angry people are fearful people who have no idea how frightened (and frightening) they are.
Avoidance of duties may be sinful laziness and sloth, but sometimes it can be genuine exhaustion that comes from our trying (consciously or unconsciously) to stomp down and avoid deep grief and pain.
Some of us are sinfully proud and foolish re: receiving criticism; but some of us want to listen to criticism and want to be readily teachable and growing in wisdom, but the graceless criticism of today sometimes presses on a shaming memory with such ferocity that even we are shocked by how quickly and high we “jump” or “kick” emotionally in response.
Like the shock of having fresh surgical sutures knocked into, sometimes a color. A scent. An image. A touch. One specific word may tip us into a valley of despair and darkness that has very, very little to do with our present circumstance. Sometimes, our seemingly out-of-proportion reactions are God’s gracious way of helping us to understand and address complex pain in our complex hearts (i.e., what the Bible describes as our mind, soul, or inner man).
For me, this week, I have had repeated opportunities to turn to the Lord with intimate cries for help, gratitude for his covenantal love, and increasing hope and assurance from his Word, because wow! Did I initially overreact to my daughter’s suffering tied to high fevers.
Yes, yes. Our family is currently dealing with the gunk of a bad virus, just like so many other families in our community. No, this is not “terrible suffering” like the “real suffering” of people in much-more-serious circumstances. But yes, this is “terrible suffering” and “real suffering” for our life circumstance, for this day, for this season. It’s exhausting to have high fevers day after day, night after night. It’s miserable to be sick and it’s miserable to be the mom who can’t protect her child from being sick.
But for me, Tara Barthel, this normal, not-too-dramatic, suffering-related-to-a-child-having-a-little-virus/bug has a layer of pain related to it that has absolutely nothing to do with today and everything to do with specific memories from my childhood (in the 1970’s). Why does this matter? Because as soon as my husband and I recognized that I wasn’t just exhausted from being up all week with my sick child, I was also grieving anew a past suffering, we—Fred and I—could take a few extra steps to be sure we were not only ministering to our child, we were caring for me, too.
Thankfully, it only took us a few days into our daughter’s illness to recognize that her sleep disturbances were reminding me of some of my worst childhood night terrors, sleeptalking, sleep-moaning-and-crying-out-for-help-weeping, and sleep walking right out of my childhood home.
(I can still taste those nightmares from 35+ years ago! Adrenaline really does have such a searing effect on memories.)
Every time my daughter’s fever went into the 104 range this week, I wasn’t just trying to determine if the ice-pack on her forehead was sufficient or whether we should put her into a tepid bath, I was also vividly flashing back to the hard metal tubs with the clanging latches that were both the instruments of my torture and my rescue in the emergency rooms of my childhood.
(If you haven’t had bags of ice poured onto your 105+ degree’d body, it may be a little hard to understand the confusion and terror of being a five year-old shaking uncontrollably from being SO hot and SO cold at the exact same time—and wondering why the grownups in the room “weren’t helping.” They were, of course, helping. But it sure didn’t feel like it at the time.)
No, I wasn’t undone by these memories this week. They were mostly just revving in the background of my days and nights of typical maternal concern and care. But last night, Fred wisely urged me to tuck into the bed in our tiny basement (far away from our daughters’ room), entrust the every-two-hour-medicine schedule to him, and sleep. Cry if I needed to. Pray. Turn off the hypervigilance-momma-meter and just rest.
I am grateful that Fred was sensitive to not only the normal difficulties of this week, but also the deeper layers of pain related to my past experiences. I truly think that we would all be wise to try to remember that people’s actions and reactions may have elements that are tied to complex, past pain. To quote a passage for Peacemaking Women:
We often experience suffering on two different levels. The pain from the current situation may ‘tap into’ our past experiences …
When our experience of pain seems disproportional to the actual situation we are in, we need to look deep into our own hearts to see if a life-forming trauma might be surfacing in the current conflict. Sometimes we may even need help to do so because our pain may cloud our vision and make it difficult to see clearly. Grief and despair, while rooted in past hurts, can be reflected powerfully in current circumstances and present suffering.
Of course, even as we seek to gain wisdom and insight about our complex pain, our suffering never gives us an excuse to sin. God calls us to honor him regardless of our past or present circumstances. As David Powlison reminds us, ‘Knowledge of a person’s history may be important for many reasons (compassion, understanding, knowledge of characteristic temptations), but it never determines the heart’s inclinations.’
Amen & Amen!
What JOY there is in knowing that one day, in Glory, there will be no more tears and no more grief; no more sin and no more unbelief. No more pain! When we see the Lord with unveiled faces (2 Cor 3:18), we will be like him. Oh, how I long for that day!
But in this life, God has sanctified us (definitive sanctification) and he is sanctifying us (progressive sanctification). One aspect of our growth in grace is learning to lament — to grieve with hope. For complex, deep pain? This grieving may feel like the peeling of layers of an onion … in his perfect timing (which we often don’t understand at the time), God lovingly helps us to peel back the layers of our sorrow or grief so that we can experience an even deeper sense of His presence, goodness, wholeness, and Shalom.
One day, in Heaven, the “onion” of pain will be gone forever and completely because our suffering will be over. But in this life, we grow and change. This life is often a life of complex grief. Fear and faith. Risk and pain. Risk and love. “Not health, but healing; not being, but becoming” to use the language of Martin Luther.
Please know, friends, that I am praying for you great hope and great comfort as you grieve and lament the complex pain of your lives.
God really is always working together all things for his glory and our good. Even—nay, especially—the painful things. Oh, that we would have eyes to see and ears to hear! That we would “understand with our hearts, turn, and be healed” (Matthew 13:15) by the One True, Triune God.
Sending my love—
Your friend,
Tara B.