Life often reminds me of the ocean waves. One moment you're floating in the salty coolness of calm waters and the next minute you're holding your breath as a wave crashes over your head, or worse, tumbles you into the sand below.
I've always been very sensitive to other peoples emotions, at times it has felt like too much. Like if only I could just focus on myself and block everything around me out then It would be good. But oh how boring my life would be.
My journey of carrying others emotions began, I believe, in the womb. I think I came out knowing deep inside my little self that people were hurting and I couldn't stand it. Over the years the burden became greater and greater, my knowledge of things too overwhelming for a little girl. I resented this "thing" that I had. My dad used to tell me that It was my gift and my curse.
When you carry the burdens of others while ignoring your own needs it doesn't take long until you collapse in physical and emotional exhaustion. By age 8 I had collapsed straight into an anxiety and eating disorder that would carry through to my college years. I still believed I was strong enough to fix everyones lives, even as mine fell apart.
I wonder sometimes about suffering. I used to roll my eyes when people would tell me that "God's path was greater than my own". It seemed ridiculous, preposterous. Whose perfect plan includes a 15 year eating disorder among other things? It made no sense.
I look around me and I see people suffering in every direction. Some bear pain I will never understand. Some bear pain that seems minor to me, but rocks them to their core. Suffering, is a part of life. Suffering, is a part of who we are in Christ.
-2 Corinthians 4:8-12-
"We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you."
-Romans 5:3-5-
"Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
And my favorite, Romans 8:
"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21thath the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, whoi have been called according to his purpose. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
31What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”j
37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,k neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
There is really no way to say it better. Suffering is such a gift to those in love with Jesus Christ. Suffering is our connection, our gateway, to being more like Jesus. Through suffering God is giving us our life. Without suffering we are an empty shell, less than who we have been created to be. We are missing out.
To just taste of what Jesus is, I would endure any trial. And in many ways at 24, I have endured many. But there's a difference now. All trials I face in the future, will have perspective. While I may be screaming and kicking and fighting it in every way I know how, I will be looking straight into the face of Jesus, drinking in his peace and goodness in a way I would never have known without great suffering.
And so I urge you sweet friends, to face all trials looking straight into the face of Jesus. Suffering is a gift if we take it and give it back to Him. It's not easy, It's not "safe", It's not "normal", but it is oh so sweet.
Thank you, Lizz. This was a gift to me today.
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