When Pain Is Healing

I drafted this six months ago in September of 2024, when I was objectively much better than I am now but life still felt pretty hard and sad. From outward appearances I looked like I was pretty functional, and I thought maybe I was finally on an upward trajectory. But the truth is, like Sarah Walton explains in this piece, behind the scenes I was plugging holes on a sinking ship.

What I wrote below about how I was feeling in September has been put on steroids and quintupled in size the past few months. To be honest, I’ve angry-sobbed nearly daily since December because of how much I WANT OFF THIS RIDE. It’s so painful. My body is scary and out of control. I’m weak and exhausted. The spiritual warfare is heavy. I’m hanging on by a pretty thin thread.

And also.With new depths of pain has come new depths of knowing God and new depths of heart healing. That’s also been put on steroids.

The duality of life is often hard for me to grapple with: This season is so painful. And. I’m grateful for the healing that has happened (and that I hope is still to come) in my heart, if not my body.

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There are a few more installments planned in the God With Us In Ordinary Days series, but I haven’t gotten to writing them yet. Perhaps that’s what I should have been doing while writing this, but instead I’m musing (once again, for going on like nine years now) on the process of healing.

My black and white, justice-oriented self desperately wants healing to be a progressively successful, completely linear, I’ve-finally-got-my-life-under-control-now-there-will-be-no-more-problems experience. But it has not, is not, and never will be that.

Sometimes the highs and lows of life feel manageable- invigorating, even, like the gentle bobbing of icy cold waves on a calm beach day. And other times they feel like taking 20 rides a day on the Tower of Terror.

In my humanness, I want off the ride- I never signed up to get on it in the first place, thank-you-very-much.

And yet.

The drops and curves of the track of life is how my heart is being healed. Painstakingly slowly it feels like, but it’s happening. Things I didn’t even know were broken are oozing out of wounds I didn’t know I had, and only because the 6.3 g-force of this roller coaster called life was too strong for my tired clenching arms to keep holding it all together.

With the Holy Spirit’s help, I’m learning to default to knowing God cares for me, instead of scrounging for evidence that He’s out to get me.

I still never know what kind of shape I’ll wake up in (can I drive today? Can I keep my commitments?). My husband’s future career is still unclear. My brother is still very ill, and we have no idea when or if that will ever change. 1001 tiny disappointments and inconveniences line a week, and many days I go to bed soul weary and many mornings I wake up the same.

And.

The fiery red sunset glowing through my neighbor’s woods at the end of the day? From God, for me to enjoy. The smooth, cool, and weightless feel of an early fall ocean dip? From God, for me to enjoy. The sunflowers that I have completely neglected, and yet continue to sprout new flowers every day? From God, for me to enjoy.

In my finite wisdom I wish (and sometimes believe) that less pain would equal a better life.

But sometimes, pain is the scalpel God uses to clean out our deepest wounds so they can begin to heal.

Praise be to God that He is smarter than me.

He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

John 15:2

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A note to anyone who registered for She Leads Church conference from my January email: I am no longer speaking at the conference.