None of us asked to be in the place we are right now. Nobody wanted a pandemic. Nobody wished for a shelter-in-place or stay-at-home order. Nobody wanted to have friends and family die of a virus. Nobody wanted to lose their jobs, their financial support, their retirement funds, their stability.
Nobody.
Likewise, we are often the recipients of a life we didn’t ask for. People die. Relationships fracture. Loved ones move away. Careers come to unexpected ends. Houses are burned to the ground. Cancer rips away your tomorrows. Stuff happens. And often it is not what we would have asked for.
So what do we do? How do we sort out the chaos in our souls when life hands us something we didn’t ask for – and certainly didn’t want? When terrible things happen, we are suddenly faced with an emotion that sucks the breath right out of us.
Hopelessness.
So how do we recover? Or better yet, thrive, in the face of and in the aftermath of tragedy and pain? It is a painful and arduous journey toward hope – a journey of learning to “receive our life as it is given.” When Job’s wife told him to let go of his integrity and curse God and die, his response to her was, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:9-10) He was willing to receive from the Lord what was being given out in that moment, even if he didn’t understand it and didn’t like it at all. And he considered the idea of not doing so foolish.
How do we receive our life as it is given – whether that be this pandemic wreaking so much destruction on so many levels, or another tragedy that is affecting us personally? How do we walk the journey back toward hope?
In a recent conversation with my Spiritual Director, she articulated for me her thoughts on this journey – a “sorting of the soul,” if you will. The steps toward receiving our life – as it is given. I have taken her framework and added some thoughts of my own, and offer it here if it will help someone on their journey.
The first stage of this journey, when something we did not want or ask for has been given to us, is Resistance. We want no part of it. We will do everything we can to give back the “gift” and refuse its invasion into our lives. The emotion that accompanies this stage is bitterness. These are the throes of grief, the hardness of heart that can become crippling if it remains too long. Even Job, great example though he was, passed through the stage of resistance with bitterness. He said, “I loathe my life; I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.” (Job 10:1) But the author of Hebrews warns us, that though bitterness may be our companion for a while, we must make sure that it does not take root in our lives. (Heb. 12:15) The way out of this stage is to “obtain the grace of God.” (Heb. 12:15) To lean hard on the knowledge of God’s overwhelming love and grace; his companioning sorrow in the painful places of a broken world. This will lead us toward Stage 2…
Resignation. Resignation comes when we realize that there is nothing we can do to change the situation in which we find ourselves. While we may not like it or want it – it still is. And it isn’t going away. At least not soon enough – if ever. The emotional posture of this stage is endurance. We don’t have to embrace this pain, but we are determined to survive it. We will endure. Endurance is a steep uphill grade on the journey toward hope. Romans 5:3 tells us that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character. But this is not the end game. There is a good distance yet to walk. And the bridge to Stage 3 is a tough one. It is to rejoice in our sufferings. Romans tells us to rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that they WILL produce hope in the end.
As we begin to rejoice in our suffering, even ever so slightly, we begin to enter Stage 3 – acceptance. Acceptance is qualitatively different than resignation. It is more open, softer, more proactive. While resignation is a passive, nonresistant submission to something, acceptance is a more active and favorable receiving of that thing. The accompanying emotion in this stage is peace. Peace is a state of harmony, often with something or someone that you would normally be at odds with. The hard places of our lives fit this description. We would normally be at odds with them. But progressing on the pathway of hope requires that we find a place of deep peace. Jesus told us that in this world we would have much trouble and suffering – but we should be of good cheer! He has overcome the world, and he brings us His peace. (John 16:33) The way of progress down this difficult pathway is to lift up our eyes, and look full in the face of Jesus. His promises are sure and his peace is available to us. But when our eyes are not on his kind, loving and compassionate face, peace is hard to find.
As we look in his eyes of love, receiving all of the love that he offers, we can find the courage to enter Stage 4 – welcome. Yes, welcome. We have moved far enough down the path that we befriend the hard things that have been given to us. They are no longer enemies, or even strangers – they are friends. The emotion that accompanies this stage is joy. In this stage, we can read the words of James – “Consider it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds” – and we don’t think he’s crazy (James 1:2). We CAN count our trial as joy because the trial has become our friend. It is making us a better person, and it has brought to us gifts that we could have never foreseen. This is the pathway to the final place of hope – seeing the trial as a gift.
Because this brings us to Stage 5 – offering. It is in the understanding of the pain as a gift, and out of the transformation that we have experienced in the process, that we have something to offer – to God, and to others. The character that has been produced in us through the trial has resulted in a different quality in our lives. The pain and suffering have become part of the fabric of who we are, not in a marred and broken kind of way, but in a purified and refined way, that allows something completely different than what we were before to flow out from us into the lives of others. The emotion that pervades this stage is gratitude. When we see the work that God has wrought in us because of the pain and suffering and struggle – we can do nothing else but fall on our knees before him and say, “I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38) Our suffering becomes for us a gift to pass on to others, that in the comfort we have received, they too will find comfort. (2 Cor. 1:5-7)
So often we stop our grieving process at stage 3 – acceptance. It is, in fact, the final of the 5 stages of grief, according to Dr. Kubler-Ross. But God has so much more for us. Acceptance is not the home of hope. Our journey of hope has run its full course when we have moved past acceptance and pressed in to welcome and offering. God wants us to do more than just accept our trials. He wants our journey through them to be a gift to others – offered in gratitude for the transformation He has worked in our own souls.
So, as you journey through this pandemic crisis – and every other trial that is currently given to you – how can you take the next step? How can this trial lead you on the pathway of Hope? Hope does not disappoint us. (Rom. 5:5) It is one of the three things that remain. (I Cor. 13:13) Walk the journey. Don’t stop short of the goal. Press on.
Find hope.
And then share it.
Credit for the 5 stages of “receiving our life” goes to Karen Andrews.