We think the absence of pain is the goal, but God is known for allowing acute pain in service of deeper healing. Like a broken bone that must be reset, the parts of us that have learned to get by without an ever-present awareness of God’s compassionate and knowing care need to be broken afresh in order for us to be made whole again.

It was my first day back at work, and as I sat at my desk I tried my best to get back into the mode of responding to emails and updating myself on what had happened over the past two weeks. I was determined to have some semblance of a normal day. The prior three months had been filled with so much torture and grief. It began with the news that I was pregnant and that my hidden thyroid problems might cause complications. It ended with the news that they could no longer hear our baby’s heartbeat, and then, a miscarriage. I had spent time mourning, reversing the anticipation of carrying this little one to term and becoming parents to a newborn. I had been deeply moved by the outpouring of compassion, prayer, and food from our loved ones and community, but it felt like it was time to put this behind me and return to the life I knew prior to all of this.
I felt myself falling back into my work groove when I glanced up and saw David.1 He had just returned from being out of town, and now he was standing silently in my doorway, staring at me, his eyes filled with compassion and knowing.
He said quietly, “I just heard the news…”
And something within me broke. Tears began to flow down my face as he came and sat down beside me. He shared that he had some idea of the unspeakable pain I was experiencing because he and his wife had miscarried many years ago. He asked how I was doing, and I jokingly said, “I was doing fine until you stopped by.”
I’ve seen this same emotional pattern unfold repeatedly. You go through a horrific experience or loss; it is overwhelming and all-consuming, but then it passes. Things get better and it appears as if the whole thing is behind you, and you even begin to stabilize and recover some sense of normality. And then, it hits you out of the blue. Something taps into the deep well of sorrow that resides deep inside of you—sorrow you didn’t even know was there—and you are flooded with the pain. I call it “the breaking.”
I’ve watched it happen in front of my eyes many times in my counseling. I meet with someone for the first time and as soon as I ask what brought them to counseling, they immediately begin to cry. They have only just met me, but the combination of my empathy, my question, and the opportunity for them to face what they have experienced is enough to break the dam. They almost always apologize for their tears, and I inform them that I will someday have a plaque on my wall that says, “Crying is expected; apologies aren’t welcome.”
Why do these “breakings” come and what is going on? This is what I have gathered.
Read More
Related Posts:

When you experience a painful surprise, Jesus is there with you. He will reorient you to what’s true here and now and help you to see that your road will also end in glorious redemption.

When I was in high school, I went to see The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring with a friend. We knew absolutely nothing about the film, including the key detail that it was based on a book divided into three volumes. The cinematography and costumes were impressive and engaging, but over the course of the movie, we felt somewhat overwhelmed by the number of characters and struggled to follow the complex storyline. The problem really came as we were approaching the two-and-a-half-hour mark. I checked my watch and thought to myself, “This story doesn’t seem anywhere close to wrapping up.” The band of travelers that had set out for Mordor began to split up, and suddenly Frodo and Sam were standing atop a mountain, eyeing their destination…in the far distance. Soon, the screen faded to black, and the credits began to roll.
We sat there in the dark, stunned and dumbfounded. “What in the world…?” “What just happened?” Our incredulity quickly turned into annoyance. “That was the worst…movie…ever!” “I can’t believe I wasted three hours of my life on that!” We fumed as we exited the theater, vowing that if a sequel was forthcoming, we would certainly never watch it.
Twenty years have passed and I still ponder: Why were we so upset? The intensity of our response was almost comical! I assume it’s because we had signed up for a particular experience: an escape from our stressful world for a few hours during which we would vicariously enjoy a happy ending. What we got—after patiently wading through a long, confusing movie—was a cliffhanger that came out of nowhere. It was both a painful surprise and surprisingly painful. It was like we had asked “for a fish, [and received] a serpent” (Matt 7:10).
I know this is kind of a silly story to use here. I recount it because I have seen a similar formula play out many times: something unexpected and unwelcome occurs, and you are stunned by the pain. The most painful surprises are the ones you never see coming. I’m talking about those moments when you find yourself in shock, saying to yourself, “This wasn’t supposed to happen. It wasn’t supposed to be like this!” The breakup you never wanted and never saw coming. Walking into your boss’s office hoping for a promotion and leaving his office without a job.
Read More

Hearing the words of Psalm 91 brought me back to a few realizations. The Psalm begins and ends with a focus, not on our troubles, but rather on our relationship with God, namely that our safety comes from dwelling in his shelter and holding fast to him, and that our job is to look to him for protection and deliverance.

This past year, my seven-year-old son has been plagued by nightmares. Though he had experienced them many times before, they increased in regularity and we noticed him becoming anxious as bedtime approached. He became fixated on my prayers for good dreams, re-checking if I had already prayed, insisting that I do it a certain way—only when he was in bed—and even posing that these prayers might be causing more nightmares.
Eventually, he shifted from trying to prevent the nightmares to grappling with the reality that they would likely happen. One evening as he was peppering me with suggestions that would allow him to avoid going to bed, I began to sing “On Eagles Wings” to him.1 It is a song I grew up hearing at family weddings and funerals that included the words of Psalm 91:

You need not fear the terror of the night,Nor the arrow that flies by day, …Though thousands fall about you, near you it shall not come.
“But I am afraid!” he responded, “and I don’t want to go to sleep. What if it happens again?” And these words came to me: “Our nightmares have the same ending as Jesus’ story.

His death was like a nightmare, but did it last? What will happen to the things in your dreams when you wake up?” My son, who’s been hearing the words of The Jesus Storybook Bible since his birth, replied, “they will be gone forever, and everything sad will become untrue.”2
For some reason, this thought hadn’t occurred to me before. Like my son, I had vacillated between strategizing ways to prevent his suffering (monitoring his exposure to scary media, trying to address his anxiety about the day’s events as it came up, etc.) and ultimately feeling powerless to protect him. Hearing the words of Psalm 91 brought me back to a few realizations (ones I speak with counselees about all day long!)
Read More