How Pain Can Make You Better

Sometimes I will be running on complete auto-pilot, disciplining children, preparing dinner, throwing together a last minute homeschool lesson, all the while my children are in constant chatter mode: story-telling, asking questions, or just lamenting how much I make them play outside [not nearly enough]. If you’re a parent, you know the train of “Uh-huh...yeah...really?...Awesome...” that can ensue from your lips when you have absolutely no idea what you are condoning. Recently, though, I was making lunch and my son was complaining, and to be completely honest, I was a little angry myself. I was tossing pots around, huffing every time I couldn’t find the spice I needed, in the background my son's bitter reel of whining.

We had been planning our family camp with church for weeks. The children’s pastors were all over that process, but being a part of the leadership team, we had known about the venture months prior and been prepping our children for the LIFE-CHANGING opportunity ahead of us: camping, glow-in-the-dark-tag, our bestest friends in the world, an hour outside town with no cell signal, and plenty to explore. We were counting down to the January date.

In the meantime, our hearts were hurting because we had received news in October that my grandpa had stage 4 Cancer. We halted our life in Texas to be with family in North Carolina for 21 days. Then, back to Texas for the holiday season, continued celebration leading up to December 25^th! Then, we found out our beloved Mimi, Paul’s grandma, had taken a turn for the worse. Her Cancer had been maintained for many years giving her allowance to attend birthday parties, travel, host holidays, and enjoy her great-grandchildren. We were blessed with getting to know her since moving to Texas over two years ago. But, the week before Christmas, she was quite ill. Celebrations were canceled. Christmas Eve was spent at the hospital, an uncomfortable dichotomy: not where you want to be a couple hours before Santa drops in, but exactly where your heart needs to be when someone you love has reached their end. Then, a week before family camp, her suffering increasing day by day, she graduated to Heaven.

And, her funeral was the weekend of family camp.

So, as I was banging plates together making lunch that day, my heart shattered in a thousand pieces for a thousand different reasons, my son was in the same place. He was going off, “It’s not fair that Mimi died. It’s not fair that we have to miss family camp. Why does everyone we know die?” His last comment was an exaggeration, but sometimes it feels like, as a Krismanits, we say goodbye more than we’d like. On auto-pilot I flipped around and slammed my fist on the table, “You know what, Jake? Your pain can make you bitter, or it can make you better! You get to decide!” When I said it, tears welled up in my eyes because I have hated learning this lesson in my life. This choice has been so ingrained in me that even on auto-pilot it came spilling out as timely wisdom.

I haven’t written lately because my heart feels so numb due to cancer and loss and disappointment. One of my goals as a parent, in this season especially, is to help my children deal with disappointment well. Life is full of disappointments, and most internalize it into victimization, which leads down dangerous roads of self-pity, required retribution, and a stream of excuses for our bad behaviors, which are seemingly justified, because hey, pain sucks.

It doesn’t have to be like that, though. Our pain can make us sturdy in conflict, a pillar in trial, and a flicker of light in the darkness. Not hardened. Oh, please, don’t let pain harden your heart. Instead, it softens us to the point of feeling, so later, we can empathize with others. It tries our beliefs about good and evil, hope and faith, and we have the opportunity to make choices about who we will become in the midst of agonizing adversity. Now, that’s power, not victim-hood. Hardening happens when we have ineffective skills for dealing with pain: We internalize it. We ignore it. We avoid it. Or, maybe we blame ourselves for it, resulting in shame.

I’m not a therapist, but I have grieved, before. I told my husband recently, “We’re like grief experts!” He said, “I don’t really want to be that…” Well, yeah, I wanted a neatly-tied testimony, too.

Since it didn’t happen, I’ll give you what I got instead. I've edited to add that I've never lost a child. These tips extend within my experience. How to let your pain make you better:

1) It’s okay to feel so deeply you think you’ll die. Just don't. 

I’ll never forget the first holiday we had without Paul’s parents. They were killed in a car accident one month before Christmas. I had plans for an extravagant holiday. I had decided I didn’t want to forget them, I wanted to remember by carrying on their traditions and telling their stories. But, no matter how much I tried to cultivate joy in my heart, I was hurting. I can remember showering and crying so torrentially, I thought my lungs would catch fire. What was happening to me? I was trying to choose joy!

Here me out: Joy is not the absence of pain. In fact, per Inside Out (an excellent grief resource), joy cannot exist outside of sadness. So, to choose joy, you actually have to let yourself feel. This is the absolute WORST part of grief. It hurts. This is the time when it is tempting to just skip along and pretend you don’t want to die…..but, don’t go there. Let your lungs burn and your heart ache. How much? As long as it takes. It will happen less and less as time goes on, even if the pain remains the same in those intermittent breakdown sessions. If you need to break down, break down. But, when it’s over, come back to life with a tissue in your back pocket.

2) Life, it’s beautiful.

When Paul’s parents died, I had a five week old baby. I felt robbed of my time with her because I needed to grieve, not take care of a baby. Death was too big for me! I couldn't handle LIFE, especially new life! Over time though, taking care of a baby begin to soften my heart. I began to smile at her cooing and kicking. When she learned to crawl, even if my heart was still in a residual state of pain, her newness was bringing me back to life.

In early October, I found out I was pregnant with my fifth child. I was not disappointed, but I was a little shaken! Two days later I learned my grandpa’s diagnosis. Suddenly the little life inside of me became a lifeline of joy, healing, grace, and invitation to celebrate something in the midst of my pain.

 

You may not have a new baby as you experience pain, but there is newness all around us! Plants! Sunshine! Children at play! Find a reason to hope, again. Hope heals.

3) Get Angry.

Anger is a stage of grief. It can send fire through your veins at the injustice you have experienced. You need retribution. You need closure. I know how this feels. When Paul’s parents died I dreamed of suing the trucker who hit them [Ha! We’ll be rich! Something good will come from this!]. But, no. We didn’t sue or seek any sort of retribution.

We forgave. The anger stage is the perfect time to practice forgiveness. It diffuses those feelings of injustice with a simple admittance that life just sucks sometimes, and people aren’t perfect. There is a higher form of retribution where we look within ourselves as to what needs to be rearranged- Bitterness? Hatred? Rage? Revenge?

Don’t get me wrong, these emotions are incredibly real. Many times, they are justified. The problem is, they are absolutely fruitless. They don’t grow you into a soft human being. They harden the heart. So, what to do?

Well, I mentioned forgiveness. That’s a start. [But, these emotions!! They need a place to go!]

For me, I decided that instead of being consumed with how much cancer needed to GO TO HELL AND F*** itself, that I would soften my heart towards those suffering. Cancer and car wrecks and early death can’t make me a bitter person. The more pain and disappointment I experience, the more I will just love the hell out of people. I want to be one that walks into uncertainty with conviction that death has lost its sting. That’s my revenge against pain and suffering. I won’t throw a fit, but I will fight. Not because I’m bitter or vengeful, but because I’m hopeful, because I believe against all odds that life is worth fighting for. That’s anger with purpose.

4) Find your crew.

I honestly do no know how to survive grief without community. In every season I’ve been broken down by grief or disappointment, I’ve been surrounded with an incredible community that handled my heart carefully.

I hope I’m not creating the illusion with a 5-step grief system that this is easy. Heck, no! Grief sucks. As your entire life is being rearranged and you’re sorting through various negative emotions, nothing feels better than having a friend call and remind you that your life is falling apart and everything is really as hard as you imagine...but, you won’t be stuck forever. That’s called empathy.

Whenever my friends are in grief, I consider it a personal responsibility to let them know it’s okay to be really sad around me. I don’t need to be entertained. I don’t need a show. If they say something angry or out of frustration, I don’t instantly hold it against their character. I know how to do this because my friends have done the same for me. Then, eventually, gently, they’ll remind me that the sun is out. Do I need some sunshine? Do I need a superfluous reason to drink?

You seriously need friends to grieve well. As a christian, I am personally privy to the church. Our church has been an incredible source of non-partial love and strength for us. But, I’m not so close-minded to believe that good friends exist only there. If you have a community, don’t be afraid to lean on them. Their sanity [let’s hope your friends are at least a little sane] will carry you through the tumultuous waves of grief.

5) Find your truth.

In the midst of grief and pain, unfairness and darkness and the death are all-consuming. They are the reality.

But, reality and truth are not the same thing. For me, the truth among a heart-wrenching reality is the God-Factor. When I experience pain, I use it as an opportunity to step deeper into my faith.

Some people go the opposite direction. Pain strikes, and they go backwards. Reality interprets their truth. It makes logical sense to do this, but then, they are completely stranded in their heart-wrenching reality, which truth has now confirmed.

This is my experience: Truth has the power to take you above your reality.

Not where it doesn’t hurt. Yes, it still hurts. If grief and pain are like a tumultuous sea, truth can act as a lifeline. The reality seems, you’re drowning. But, the truth is, you’re going to make it out alive. Truth will pull you aboard if you let it.

The truth of becoming better instead of bitter is Biblical.

Psalm 71:20

“Even though you’ve let us sink down with trials and troubles, I know you will revive us again, lifting us from the dust of death. Give us even more greatness than before. Turn and comfort us once more.”

Psalm 66:12

“Our enemies have prevailed against us. We’ve passed through fire and flood, yet in the end you always bring us out better than we were before, saturated with your goodness.”

Grief will viciously, unapologetically, confront your truth. Personally, I take the opportunity in my deepest place of pain to be grateful I get to wrestle with what I believe, and then solidify it. I was meeting with someone recently who saw their continued hardship as an assault from God. Personally, I have come to a place where I don’t believe God kills people or causes cancer. He may receive people, but He doesn’t kill people.

Now, do I understand why some experience a miracle, and others don't? No.

Do I understand why at 29 years old, I am in the minority for those my age who have experienced a deep grief? Nope, I don’t.

BUT, I have resolved myself to believe that A) It wasn’t God’s plan to bring destruction, and B) It was His plan to make me a better person. I don’t fully understand that dichotomy, but it has been my lifeline.

Sometimes in grief, God can feel unbearably far away. I don’t understand this phenomenon. That’s why truth is so important, because you can grab on and it pulls you to the source: Jesus. I can say after walking through grief seasons before that even when His voice and presence is fuzzy in the process, it comes through loud and clear as your heart begins to soften. Hold on, you’ll hear Him speak again.

There it is, a brief window into my journey of grief. Now, some quickfire words of wisdom before I am tempted to craft a dissertation:

* Grief looks different for everyone.

* Grief can come in many forms, not just loss of a person. Sometimes we lose jobs. Sometimes we move across the country. Sometimes our beloved dog dies. Sometimes we grieve because of a totally failed expectation {think current presidential season}. Grief is a part of the human condition.

* Grief is a gift. Surrendering to the tumult and pain can bring enormous healing.

* Don’t bypass grief.

* Don’t stay in grief indefinitely.

* Don’t be afraid of other people’s grief [a lesson I am STILL learning].

* Grief may transform you into a version of yourself you don’t recognize. That’s okay. Just don’t camp there if it isn’t healthy. What isn’t healthy? Addiction, Control, prolonged depression, manipulative behavior...if you’re stuck, get some professional help. You may need to take medicine for a season.

I hope this helps someone who is wrestling with grief and/or pain of disappointment. I hope it brings hope and healing that you will feel the sunshine again. That was how I knew after Paul's parents died that I had survived grief: I realized the sun was shining. 

It will shine for you, too. Just give it time.