My nearly 16-year writing career shows that I’m very comfortable sharing quite intimate details of my life, especially my experiences with grief, to a public audience. My objective for sharing is I want to lead others in hope, in a faith method, and to model vulnerability.
But, and this so often happens, I’ve been curtailed by well-meaning friends who either want to rescue me or give me advice—the latter is ironic given that I’m a pastor and counsellor and I’m the one trying to help others.
I write to help people with the help I’ve received.
I don’t write to be helped.
It is frustrating when people can’t simply read, reflect, be moved, or move on, but they feel they need to reach out and offer a way out of the pain—when, of course, they can’t. It is emotional bypassing because of THEIR discomfort and not ours, especially when we can SIT in our discomfort.
Sitting in the discomfort is the ultimate
in spiritual skill when enduring any sort of pain.
Sitting in the discomfort is something many people find incredibly hard. But ironically, grief teaches us how to do this when we have nowhere else to go but to face the reality of our losses. The masterstroke and genius of grief is it teaches resilience through adversity.
This is something many people do not understand. Because they do not understand, they need to rectify the situation for us when we really don’t want them meddling suchlike.
Those who do not understand cannot be reasoned with; they may have no concept for the “resilience” we really do have. They have no resources for understanding this, besides they may have their own motives (e.g., makes them feel heroic) for reaching out and insisting they help us.
When Jesus said, “I have food to eat that you do not know about,” in John 4:32, He was remarking about eternal life, and it was a ‘knowledge’ that the disciples knew nothing about at that time. Just the same, when we have been through mental health struggles or deep grief, those who haven’t experienced those adversities may struggle to relate. We have food they do not know about. This is because grief takes us into the eternal reaches of otherness that this world cannot grapple with.
But those who have not wrestled with their
grief or mental health struggle cannot understand.
They show this via their ignorance.
It is the domain of those
who cannot sit in their own discomfort
to offer us swift escape from ours.
The issue here is not just a lack of understanding. The issue is also very much about the vocal minority of people who insist on “fixing” our “problems” for us.
The key frustration is it’s the last thing most of us want. We know that it isn’t possible to simply “fix” grief and mental health challenges. We know and accept this because we know through experience it’s impossible to shoot a magic bullet and slay the dragon.
The paradox that is operational in all this is this:
the weak are the strong, and
the supposed strong are the weak.
A person who pretends they are strong by insisting our struggles be fixed, denied, or avoided, cannot bear to think of our suffering, and they certainly can’t enter ours or their own struggles. They appear strong but are actually weak.
Yet, the person who can bear their weakness, who has learned they can bear it over the months or years, knows that if this can’t kill them it will make them stronger. Those who bear their weakness and refuse to fix, deny, or avoid it are strong.
See the paradox?
“WHEN I AM WEAK THEN I AM STRONG,”
says Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12:10.
It is so difficult for those who are suffering grief or mental illness to share because their vulnerability won’t be respected and revered. This, when in reality anyone coming close to a person suffering grief or mental illness ought to know they step on scared ground.
Those in their struggle are tired and have precious few resources. Do they waste these resources on those who do not understand and have no interest learning? No, they don’t.
They know they have experience in life that is like the food Jesus spoke of. Some people have no idea about the food that opens up another world, because this food involves pain, and they are not about to go there.
Be encouraged all you who are heavy laden because there is access to a rest there that those who have never experienced such heavy burdens do not know exists.
When we have been to hell and back, or perhaps we are willing even though we are only halfway through, we have the desire to share our hope, and the new faith that’s birthed.
We want to pay the wisdom
we have learned forward.
Most human beings want to spend what they
received in their suffering on helping others.
It is sad when there are pockets of our life who resist the love, support, and encouragement we are offering. This is especially the case when these people pretend they have all of life together.
But, as they say, such is life.
Those who will be helped will receive.
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