I can't be the only kid who tried to run away from home.
You know the drill: I'd flip open my cheap plastic, glittery, star-speckled suitcase and fill it with four framed photos, a stuffed bear that had definitely seen better days, maybe one piece of clothing, too many toys, and a jar of peanut butter (hold the bread).
Then, making sure I did enough huffing and puffing and slamming around so my entire family knew my intentions, I'd make my way down the driveway, sniffling to myself the whole time about how unloved I was, how misunderstood, how mistreated.
I'd usually make it to the end of the driveway before chickening out, camping out under a tree for a while eating my peanut butter until I sheepishly re-entered the house.
Recently I went backpacking in Montana.
Surprisingly enough, my packing abilities have improved since my flourishes of childhood drama. You'll be impressed that I didn't pack a single framed photo. I will admit, however, that peanut butter was still on the packing list. Nobody ever outgrows peanut butter.
What you pack, and especially what you don't pack, is essential for backpacking. Everything you need has to be carried, one way or another, so not having any extra weight is key for the best backpacking experience. To pack things you won't end up using is a waste of space and senseless pain on your back.
Five-year-old Sarah thought framed photos and some crayon-covered toys were essential for life on the road. 23-year-old Sarah realized that a lighter, wool socks and a water bottle were much higher on the list of necessities.
While I have made improvements in my sense of priorities and knowing what is essential versus what isn't, I have to confess I still have a long way to go.
I'm kind of a sentimental sap. I keep letters from those I love, little notes of encouragement my friends jotted down on sticky notes that helped me through a hard day, ticket stubs that remind me of a wonderful day or an exciting trip, and little nick-nacks that I find weird, interesting or eccentric.
If my ability to take only what I needed on the journey of life was a metaphorical backpack, I would have filled it up long ago with sentimental and most-loved items, leaving no room for the tools and necessary items that would help me actually, you know, survive.
I think we all have a hard time letting go of what we think we need.
Think: a particular job that is comfortable and fulfilling, a certain geographical location we have come to know and love as home, a specific friendship or relationship that we don't think we could live without. How do we respond when we're asked to set those things down to make room for something else? Do we respond with anger? Indignation? Bitterness?
Does it make us question God's goodness? Does it make us wonder if He actually knows best? I mean, does He really understand what it's like to shoulder your backpack? Sure, maybe He knows best with others, but with you? You're not so sure.
I'm not so sure.
It's scary to admit that sometimes I don't feel like God is good. It's embarrassing to admit that sometimes I don't feel like He actually cares if I'm happy or not. Sometimes I question whether He even hears my fervent prayers.
I'm currently 85% funded to begin the journey I started a year ago. The inevitable departure date for Brazil looms closer and closer.
The Lord has been helping me pack, of course. At first, I was more than willing to take His suggestions at what to pack and what to keep out. I'd never done anything like this so who was I to argue?
I was okay when He asked me to pull a few cherished items from the bottom of my pack. It hurt, but it was okay. It was only a few items, after all. But He's continued to help me prepare, which has meant more items in my pack need to be rearranged, squished, pulled out, and left behind.
Each time gets harder and harder, and each item that gets pried from my pack leaves me sadder, more disappointed, and makes me question God a little more.
It's not easy to admit these things, I hope you know. I wish I could say that the complete abandon of all that I love comes easily, naturally, and with unbridled joy. But, honestly, I wish it didn't have to be this way. I wish following God didn't require me to give anything up. I wish it didn't require disappointment, rejection, or a broken heart. I wish it didn't mean loneliness and questioning and doubts and anger and prayers lifted up with only silence to return.
But I think it's important to voice what I think many Christians experience, but allow shame to keep them quiet. There is no shame in struggling when life is hard and feels heavy. There is no shame in crying out to God when your pain feels pointless and the sacrifice you're being required to make feels unnecessary.
I spent a considerable amount of time in counseling. I memorized a lot of scripture during that time, one of which was Psalm 84:11 which says:
"For the Lord is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless."
It's a spiritual discipline to believe that God is good. It's a discipline to believe that He doesn't withhold good things from us. And it's a discipline to believe that if things we desire, believing they are good, are not given to us or are taken away, it is not because the Lord is withholding something from us, but that His perception is better than ours.
It's believing that He desires our joy and doesn't simply seek to make us miserable creatures constantly trudging through self-denial and suffering.
So then how does that cause us to respond differently when we know God is good and doesn't withhold good things from us intellectually, but emotionally it doesn't seem that way?
First, allow yourself to come to terms with how you are feeling. Talk to God honestly about your pain, your disappointments, your anger, and your confusion. I think as Christians we often try to find meaning in our pain before we have even dealt with our pain. Don't try to spiritualize what you are going through too quickly. Allow yourself to mourn. To weep.
Second, journal how you feel next to what you know to be true. This is something I learned how to do in counseling and it has helped me tremendously. I would journal things like: "It feels like nothing I want ever works out" or "It seems like so much pain all the time" or "It seems like God is ignoring my prayers." Then I would journal things I know to be true about God, such as "God is only good" and "God doesn't withhold any good thing" and "God's thoughts are higher than my thoughts" and "He hears my prayers and mourns with me when I mourn"
Even then, you won't feel like the truths you have written are true. They might not feel true the first time, the second time, or even the third time. But the point is combating untruths with the truth. The point is fighting the doubts with the confidence found in scripture.
If we allow ourselves to simmer in the untruths our mind conjures up to destroy us, we will completely lose sight of what is true and real.
We will allow ourselves to become bitter toward the idea of God we create in our heads of an emotionally detached God carelessly zapping people for amusement. That isn't who God is.
Earlier this summer I read "Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers" by Dane C. Ortlund.
Ortlund writes: "The burden of Hebrews 4:15, and of Thomas Goodwin's book on it, is the heart of Christ. Yes, verse 16 speaks of 'the throne of grace.' But verse 15 is opening up to us the heart of grace. Not only can he alone pull us out of the hole of sin; he alone desires to climb in and bear our burdens. Jesus is able to sympathize. He 'co-suffers' with us. As Goodwin's contemporary John Owen put it, Christ 'is inclined from his own heart and affections to give...us help and relief...and he is inwardly moved during our sufferings and trials with a sense and fellow-feeling of them.' If you are in Christ, you have a friend who, in your sorrow, will never lob down a pep talk from heaven. He cannot bear to hold himself at a distance. Nothing can hold him back. His heart is too bound up with yours" (49-50).
Ortlund shows and proves that God's heart breaks when we are in pain and when we suffer and when we mourn. If our pain causes Him pain, why would He inflict senseless pain without a purpose? Why would He cause us to suffer unless He was doing something good through it?
This is the hope I cling to on nights when all I can do is cry and call out to God that I don't understand why it has to be so hard all the time.
I won't pretend to understand the reason why God has asked me to leave certain things behind. I won't pretend to know what the Lord is trying to teach me or show me yet.
But that's okay. It's okay because I trust the character of God. And I trust that His love for me is greater than I could ever imagine. His love for you is greater than you could ever imagine.
You are loved and you are not alone.
Love,
S
