I'm in the muck with you. And there is no platitude. In fact, at this point, a platitude is the last thing I want to hear. Thinks for the reminder that I need to tell God all the things. I hope your week brings a respite of things that suck. (no snark there, I want the same for myself)
One thing that has helped me is a kind of paradoxical emphasis on two things: being honest and sincere about how hard things are, no sugar coating. 2. At the same time, taking seriously what I believe about God being all-good and in control, and the corollary that God is doing what is ultimately best in my life and in the world. I have found comfort in looking at my own life with all the troubles, uncertainties, etc. (and you know these are not minor things in my life right now) and being able to say with conviction, even out loud, "I endorse what you are going in my life, God. I know that if I could see things from your point of view, and when I do see things that way in the end, I will agree with you that you have done what is best and written the perfect story that I would want to be written. I'm on your side," while at the same time feeling the full weight of the pain and suffering and uncertainty.
Another thing: You compare your pain to what is going on in the world and call your troubles minor in comparison. I understand where you are coming from, but don't compare apples and oranges. Don't underestimate your own pain. We are all attached to things and people and circumstances in this world, and when those things change or are lost we all experience great suffering. Outwardly, sure, it seems that someone who has had their home blown up by a missile and their whole family killed is in a worst state than you. And in some sense that is true. And yet pain is felt in the mind and is a response to one's own circumstances. Your pain is just as real and serious to you as theirs is to them. We all have our own inner worlds, and we all suffer when those worlds are negatively affected. It is fallacious to compare your suffering to others by means merely of comparison of outward circumstances. You sell your own suffering too short that way. Give yourself a break and don't add to your pain by feeling guilty for feeling it just because other people's outward circumstances are worse in some ways. You wouldn't downgrade other people's suffering in that way, so don't do it to yourself either. Life is hard, and you experience suffering. You aren't insulting others by feeling and acknowledging your own pain. Rather, allow it to increase your sense of solidarity with others.
If I could add just one more thing. I thought of something I wrote up in an article on the problem of evil, about why this problems is such a difficult and powerful one for people. It speaks to how our belief in an all-good God who is in control can be reconciled with how great our sufferings feel to us:
"The problem of evil is one of the classic concerns/arguments raised against the existence of God. "If God is all-powerful and all-good, how could there be evil and suffering in the world? If God is all-powerful, he can eliminate the evil. If he is all-good, he would want to. So there should be no evil." Personally, I do not find it to be a terribly difficult objection to deal with on an intellectual level, but it is very tough to respond to overall. I think perhaps that one of the reasons for this is because it strikes hard on the emotional level. The sufferings caused by the evils in this world are felt very deeply, and evil, as the hymn says, seems "oft so strong." It is difficult, when one is the midst of experiencing great evil or suffering, to imagine how the allowance of such evils could be justified, or to see how any good could possibly counterbalance them. Consider a novel as an analogy. The characters in the novel, while in the midst of the apparent victory of evil (it is typical in a story for the power of evil to reach its greatest height, its victory apparently assured, right before the climactic "eucatastrophe"--as Tolkien called it--where good finally defeats evil), cannot imagine how evil could be defeated and good could possibly win. (I think of Sam's great speech to this effect in The Two Towers movie.) The end of the story is very difficult to conceive of from the vantage point of the middle of the story.
Because pain and wickedness are felt deeply, and because of the difficulty of envisioning the end from the middle, it is difficult for people oftentimes to give an unbiased intellectual hearing to answers to the problem of evil. It feels like a betrayal or a trivialization of the greatness of the pain to hear someone make an argument for how the allowance of such evils in the world could be justified, or how the allowance of evil leads to a greater good. No matter how intellectually convincing such arguments are, on an intuitive and emotional level, they feel woefully inadequate to the reality.
That is all very understandable, and yet, if we wish to get reality right, we must try to approach even this topic with sound, objective reason. We must distinguish between what our feelings tell us and the intellectual merits of the arguments. This is one place where the virtue of faith comes in. Faith is believing to be true what one has good reason to believe to be true even when the appearances are against it. I once heard the concept of faith illustrated by means of the idea of an airplane pilot flying through thick clouds. The pilot's intuition, judging from the appearances out his window, keeps telling him that he is about to crash into a mountain, but his instruments tell him he is nowhere near the mountains and there is no danger on his current trajectory. The pilot has to suppress his instincts and intuitions and trust his instruments. (I have no idea if pilots actually experience situations like this, not having any experience with flying anything, but the analogy is still useful either way.) That is how the virtue of faith works. Our reason leads us to certain conclusions, and yet our instincts make these conclusions seem false. We have to trust our reason over our intuitions and over the appearances. But this can be very difficult, and we must be careful to give ourselves and other people what we and they need at the time. The existence of evil poses intellectual challenges to the idea of God. These challenges must be met by rational arguments. But when people are in the midst of evil, they often need comfort, encouragement, pastoral care, and other kinds of personal and emotional support as much as or more than they need intellectual answers. We cannot respond to the legitimate intellectual challenges by expressions of emotion or platitudes, nor can we properly comfort and encourage people simply by giving them intellectual answers to arguments. Both of these have an essential role, but they must recognize their proper place."
I hear you and resonate and empathize. Keep being honest. Here is something I wrote to someone just last week who had confided in me regarding the sufferings they are going through:
"Life can indeed be difficult. We all go through times of greater or lesser difficulty. There are times when everything seems almost perfect. There are times when things don't even feel bearable. And there are lots of times in between these two extremes. This happens all through life. It is part of the nature of life in a fallen world. We never get entirely used to it. Our destiny lies ultimately in heaven with God, and anything less than that never fully meets our needs.
I think it's good to be realistic - not unrealistically optimistic, nor unrealistically pessimistic. It is good to think positively regarding the possibility of things changing for the better. That often happens. Oftentimes we ourselves can change circumstances and make them better. But sometimes things don't get better, and we can't make them better. It is good to not give up and work for good changes, but at the same time to accept things when we can't change them.
"Contentment" is a crucially important skill in life. Contentment doesn't mean pretending or trying to feel like everything is OK when it isn't. It's a recognition that God is ultimately in control of all things, and that he is supremely wise, good, and benevolent. He always does what is best. That's the reality. And if we recognize it, it is a great comfort on the deepest level. The history of the universe, along with our own individual life histories, are parts of a story being written by God, and when we see the whole thing completed at the end, we will rejoice at how perfect and beautiful it is. Thus, even in really hard times, we can endorse and rejoice in what God is doing, and we can praise him for it. But that doesn't make it easy. When you're in the middle of a hard time, it really hurts. We shouldn't pretend otherwise, and it's OK to acknowledge the hurt and to feel it. (Read the Psalms for a picture of what true piety looks like - the psalmist praises God and trusts him, but he also expresses his pain and suffering and cries out to God about it.) We don't sugar-coat the reality and pretend it's better than it is, but we do recognize that everything is ultimately tending towards something perfect and beautiful, and in the meantime we work to make things better where we can. This is what true contentment looks like.
I've been through really tough times in my own life, and they have increased my sense of empathy for others who are suffering. So be comforted also in knowing that your brothers and sisters in Christ care about you and and are with you in your difficulties. We mourn when you mourn and rejoice when you rejoice. And remember above all that God loves you. Cling to him, choose him as your chief good, follow him, and look forward to seeing the story he will make of your life. If you follow him, you will reap the fruit of it all in the end. And there are lots of good things along the way as well, lots of good things to enjoy and love in life. God sustains us in all sorts of ways."
I'm in the muck with you. And there is no platitude. In fact, at this point, a platitude is the last thing I want to hear. Thinks for the reminder that I need to tell God all the things. I hope your week brings a respite of things that suck. (no snark there, I want the same for myself)
You, too.
One thing that has helped me is a kind of paradoxical emphasis on two things: being honest and sincere about how hard things are, no sugar coating. 2. At the same time, taking seriously what I believe about God being all-good and in control, and the corollary that God is doing what is ultimately best in my life and in the world. I have found comfort in looking at my own life with all the troubles, uncertainties, etc. (and you know these are not minor things in my life right now) and being able to say with conviction, even out loud, "I endorse what you are going in my life, God. I know that if I could see things from your point of view, and when I do see things that way in the end, I will agree with you that you have done what is best and written the perfect story that I would want to be written. I'm on your side," while at the same time feeling the full weight of the pain and suffering and uncertainty.
Another thing: You compare your pain to what is going on in the world and call your troubles minor in comparison. I understand where you are coming from, but don't compare apples and oranges. Don't underestimate your own pain. We are all attached to things and people and circumstances in this world, and when those things change or are lost we all experience great suffering. Outwardly, sure, it seems that someone who has had their home blown up by a missile and their whole family killed is in a worst state than you. And in some sense that is true. And yet pain is felt in the mind and is a response to one's own circumstances. Your pain is just as real and serious to you as theirs is to them. We all have our own inner worlds, and we all suffer when those worlds are negatively affected. It is fallacious to compare your suffering to others by means merely of comparison of outward circumstances. You sell your own suffering too short that way. Give yourself a break and don't add to your pain by feeling guilty for feeling it just because other people's outward circumstances are worse in some ways. You wouldn't downgrade other people's suffering in that way, so don't do it to yourself either. Life is hard, and you experience suffering. You aren't insulting others by feeling and acknowledging your own pain. Rather, allow it to increase your sense of solidarity with others.
If I could add just one more thing. I thought of something I wrote up in an article on the problem of evil, about why this problems is such a difficult and powerful one for people. It speaks to how our belief in an all-good God who is in control can be reconciled with how great our sufferings feel to us:
"The problem of evil is one of the classic concerns/arguments raised against the existence of God. "If God is all-powerful and all-good, how could there be evil and suffering in the world? If God is all-powerful, he can eliminate the evil. If he is all-good, he would want to. So there should be no evil." Personally, I do not find it to be a terribly difficult objection to deal with on an intellectual level, but it is very tough to respond to overall. I think perhaps that one of the reasons for this is because it strikes hard on the emotional level. The sufferings caused by the evils in this world are felt very deeply, and evil, as the hymn says, seems "oft so strong." It is difficult, when one is the midst of experiencing great evil or suffering, to imagine how the allowance of such evils could be justified, or to see how any good could possibly counterbalance them. Consider a novel as an analogy. The characters in the novel, while in the midst of the apparent victory of evil (it is typical in a story for the power of evil to reach its greatest height, its victory apparently assured, right before the climactic "eucatastrophe"--as Tolkien called it--where good finally defeats evil), cannot imagine how evil could be defeated and good could possibly win. (I think of Sam's great speech to this effect in The Two Towers movie.) The end of the story is very difficult to conceive of from the vantage point of the middle of the story.
Because pain and wickedness are felt deeply, and because of the difficulty of envisioning the end from the middle, it is difficult for people oftentimes to give an unbiased intellectual hearing to answers to the problem of evil. It feels like a betrayal or a trivialization of the greatness of the pain to hear someone make an argument for how the allowance of such evils in the world could be justified, or how the allowance of evil leads to a greater good. No matter how intellectually convincing such arguments are, on an intuitive and emotional level, they feel woefully inadequate to the reality.
That is all very understandable, and yet, if we wish to get reality right, we must try to approach even this topic with sound, objective reason. We must distinguish between what our feelings tell us and the intellectual merits of the arguments. This is one place where the virtue of faith comes in. Faith is believing to be true what one has good reason to believe to be true even when the appearances are against it. I once heard the concept of faith illustrated by means of the idea of an airplane pilot flying through thick clouds. The pilot's intuition, judging from the appearances out his window, keeps telling him that he is about to crash into a mountain, but his instruments tell him he is nowhere near the mountains and there is no danger on his current trajectory. The pilot has to suppress his instincts and intuitions and trust his instruments. (I have no idea if pilots actually experience situations like this, not having any experience with flying anything, but the analogy is still useful either way.) That is how the virtue of faith works. Our reason leads us to certain conclusions, and yet our instincts make these conclusions seem false. We have to trust our reason over our intuitions and over the appearances. But this can be very difficult, and we must be careful to give ourselves and other people what we and they need at the time. The existence of evil poses intellectual challenges to the idea of God. These challenges must be met by rational arguments. But when people are in the midst of evil, they often need comfort, encouragement, pastoral care, and other kinds of personal and emotional support as much as or more than they need intellectual answers. We cannot respond to the legitimate intellectual challenges by expressions of emotion or platitudes, nor can we properly comfort and encourage people simply by giving them intellectual answers to arguments. Both of these have an essential role, but they must recognize their proper place."
I hear you and resonate and empathize. Keep being honest. Here is something I wrote to someone just last week who had confided in me regarding the sufferings they are going through:
"Life can indeed be difficult. We all go through times of greater or lesser difficulty. There are times when everything seems almost perfect. There are times when things don't even feel bearable. And there are lots of times in between these two extremes. This happens all through life. It is part of the nature of life in a fallen world. We never get entirely used to it. Our destiny lies ultimately in heaven with God, and anything less than that never fully meets our needs.
I think it's good to be realistic - not unrealistically optimistic, nor unrealistically pessimistic. It is good to think positively regarding the possibility of things changing for the better. That often happens. Oftentimes we ourselves can change circumstances and make them better. But sometimes things don't get better, and we can't make them better. It is good to not give up and work for good changes, but at the same time to accept things when we can't change them.
"Contentment" is a crucially important skill in life. Contentment doesn't mean pretending or trying to feel like everything is OK when it isn't. It's a recognition that God is ultimately in control of all things, and that he is supremely wise, good, and benevolent. He always does what is best. That's the reality. And if we recognize it, it is a great comfort on the deepest level. The history of the universe, along with our own individual life histories, are parts of a story being written by God, and when we see the whole thing completed at the end, we will rejoice at how perfect and beautiful it is. Thus, even in really hard times, we can endorse and rejoice in what God is doing, and we can praise him for it. But that doesn't make it easy. When you're in the middle of a hard time, it really hurts. We shouldn't pretend otherwise, and it's OK to acknowledge the hurt and to feel it. (Read the Psalms for a picture of what true piety looks like - the psalmist praises God and trusts him, but he also expresses his pain and suffering and cries out to God about it.) We don't sugar-coat the reality and pretend it's better than it is, but we do recognize that everything is ultimately tending towards something perfect and beautiful, and in the meantime we work to make things better where we can. This is what true contentment looks like.
I've been through really tough times in my own life, and they have increased my sense of empathy for others who are suffering. So be comforted also in knowing that your brothers and sisters in Christ care about you and and are with you in your difficulties. We mourn when you mourn and rejoice when you rejoice. And remember above all that God loves you. Cling to him, choose him as your chief good, follow him, and look forward to seeing the story he will make of your life. If you follow him, you will reap the fruit of it all in the end. And there are lots of good things along the way as well, lots of good things to enjoy and love in life. God sustains us in all sorts of ways."