Tag: suffering

thoughts

new hope

alyssapebbles

The end of the year always brings a sense of hopefulness about the year to come…especially after a particularly difficult year. This has been one of those years for me. In fact I could say 2023 has been the hardest year of my life– yet also the most refining and beautiful year in many ways, as I have seen my relationship with Christ grow through suffering and realized my ability to endure through his strength.

Although I’m far from where I want to be, I see how far God has carried me and I am believing that He has good things in store for 2024. We have already been blessed with a new home that we get to move into soon, and I have seen progress in my health journey, although still rocky. There are so many blessings all around me if I just have the eyes to see them, instead of focusing on what I lack.

It can be easy to become cynical, bitter, or fearful after hard things keep happening to you and it feels like you are being constantly pummeled by life. It can feel like the other shoe is always going to drop. It can feel dangerous to hope, because nothing ever seems to work out. Engaging these feelings has been a great temptation this year, and I still dwell in these mentalities more frequently than I’d like to admit.

But God has shown me that there is another way to view the future– through the lens of His love and providence. To trust that He is still good and working, even though life has been hard. That He is taking care of me through the hard things as He always has, and will continue to in the future. So even when the other shoe does drop (and it usually does, doesn’t it?), He will be right there with me. That gives me no excuse to be bitter or fearful anymore.

Although I still hope for fully restored health, I am learning to take it day by day and to celebrate the small victories (such as not being in pain at night!). It’s so easy to see how far I have yet to go, but I know God is asking me to just invite him into the here and now, to be content with what currently is because this is where He is. That He is healing and will heal me in His timing.

I am grateful to put this year behind me but I will carry its lessons into the new year and for the rest of my life. I don’t want to erase it from my memory or pretend it never happened, as painful as it was. I have learned to appreciate the small things so much more because of the suffering I have had to walk through, and God has truly changed my perspective.

While a new year does not magically change our circumstances or make us better versions of ourselves, it does give us a refresh, a restart, in a sense. Just as His mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23), each new year brings new mercies. We can hold onto fresh hope in who God is and what He is doing. We can believe that this year will be better than the last, that the best truly is yet to come for us who are in Him.

Even if 2024 brings more hardship and pain (which it most likely will), we can rest in the promise that He continues to work in and through us and our circumstances. We can have a fresh perspective on pain and suffering, and begin to truly experience His peace and joy in the midst of it. We don’t have to be afraid because we know He is in control of every situation in our lives and in the world.

Our hope is not found in our circumstances. Our hope is found solely in Him, and because of that, we can rejoice because that means every new year He is with us. We can have hope because we don’t walk into another year alone, but rather with the One who loves us and is making all things new (Revelation 21:5).

So while I still have hope for things to change in 2024, I can rest knowing that even if they don’t, my true hope is secured forever in Him.

thoughts

staying in the hard place–where Jesus is

alyssapebbles

I’ve always been able to escape hard things. I grew up in an upper-middle-class family in the safe bubble of a quiet suburban town. I have two loving parents and was given everything I ever needed to be comfortable and happy: healthy food, a nice house, good schools, lots of family vacations… you get the point. I was never deprived of worldly comforts growing up, and other than the typical angsty teen years I never encountered true suffering.

I am so grateful I was raised that way. I am so grateful to my parents who worked so hard to give me and my brother everything. I’m grateful the Lord sheltered me from childhood trauma or abuse or poverty that so many people have had to go through.

But it made the entering the real world incredibly difficult. I had learned to expect comfort– to feel entitled to it even. So when it was stripped away from me, I had no foundation to make sense of what was happening.

Whenever things were hard growing up, I had my parents to fall back on– whether that was financially, emotionally, or anything else. I was a great dancer and I loved it but I wanted to stop dancing so I could spend more time with my friends, so my mom let me quit. I nearly dropped out of college because I knew I could just run home to them. I couldn’t hold down jobs after college because I knew I had a fallback. I never learned true resilience or grit. I never learned the art of sticking things out, even and especially when they got hard– because I didn’t think they were supposed to be.

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.

John 16:33

But then chronic illness entered my life. And in one short year I became both a wife and a mother. And I can no longer run from the hard. I can no longer call my mom to come save me from the darkness I face. No amount of money or emotional support can relieve me of the weight I now have to carry.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Matthew 11:28-30

But I’m learning that God can. And all He asks me to do is be still, and trust Him. To stay right here in the middle of the pain that feels like is stealing my best days from me, and trust that He somehow He is making beauty from even this. To stop frantically trying to heal myself or figure out ways to make my life easier or more manageable.

I can’t escape my own body and the pain I now experience daily, and I can’t escape being a mother to a strong-willed, smart toddler who knows how to push my weary mind and body to it’s absolute end. But I can let Jesus come and meet me in the middle of this mess of my life and give me a new perspective– one where my problems melt away in light of His presence.

Perhaps true resilience isn’t fighting against our circumstances until we have our way and our outcomes. Perhaps it’s simply accepting circumstances as they are– as painful as they are– and letting God do His good work. Not getting in His way with our striving and anxious efforts to free ourselves anymore.

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

Philippians 1:6

When I try to run away, I’m missing out on the blessing that is right here. The miracle that God is doing in me and in my life, through the pain. Through the suffering. When I stay right here and look to Him instead of a million other things to try to get out of my pain, when I quiet my heart and fix it upon His steadfast love, His power is unleashed. His story can finally begin to unfold unhindered in me, instead of the frantic one I’ve been trying to write.

His story is so much better than mine. Where I see only pain, He sees potential. Where I see only darkness, He is light.

Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

Psalm 139:12

Would I rather keep trying to piece together all this brokenness in my own strength, trying to salvage something manageable out of it in sheer hopeless desperation? Or can I lay it all down before Him, the One who redeems all things and makes all things work for His great purposes?

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:28

Maybe this story was never meant to be mine. Maybe it’s part of a greater story whose author is Love Himself. Maybe this story is all about His glory– and how glorious He is. I would be crazy to try to run from a story like that.

So when I wake up tomorrow and my body hurts and my son is screaming at me and everything in me wants to give up and despair, I want to choose to stay. To be present, and to be near to Jesus. To cling to Him with every breath, and to see Him working this all out for my good and for His glory.

I love the way Dr. Pardington puts it in the devotional Streams in the Desert:

The right thing is simply to trust God, for while we trust, He can work. Worrying, however, prevents Him from doing anything for us. If the darkness covering us strikes terror in our hearts and we run back and forth, seeking in vain to find a way of escape from the dark trial where God’s providence has placed us, then the Lord cannot work on our behalf. Only the peace of God will quiet our minds and put our hearts at rest. We must place our hand in His as a little child and allow Him to lead us into the bright sunshine of His love. He knows the way out of the dense, dark forest, so we may climb into His arms, trusting Him to rescue us by showing us the shortest and most reliable road.

I want to stop fighting and just be still, knowing that He is fighting for me. He hasn’t forgotten or abandoned me– no, rather He sovereignly allows every circumstance in my life because He loves me. Because He knows what kind of fruit it will produce in me, fruit that could be produced in no other way. He knows the harvest that is coming, however long it takes. His timing is not my own, but it is perfect.

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

John 12:24-25

God is putting to death in me the things that were never meant to last: my pride, my idols of comfort and health, my hope in anything other than Him. Pain is peeling back the ugly layers of my heart. But the death of these things is what will lead to new life in Him. As a dear friend and mentor recently told me: I am like a seed that is germinating. Everything looks dark all around me as I am buried deep in the ground, but after I have died to myself, I will sprout up with new life.

Whatever kind of pain you are facing– give it to Him. Stop carrying it alone and stop trying to run from it. Face it head on with your Father who is for you and will turn it into something magnificent in your life. Lay down your own will and take up your cross. His way is better than you could ever imagine, and He will produce a harvest beyond your wildest dreams.

Maybe this hard place that I want so desperately to escape is the place right where He is.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18
health, thoughts

in the midst: a choice

alyssapebbles

I have suffered from severe health anxiety for four and a half years now, when life as I knew it was flipped upside down in a small apartment in Santa Cruz, and I could no longer rely on a healthy body anymore.

There have been so many tears shed, angry words shouted, and dreams ripped away. There has been self-pity, bitterness, and despair of life itself. What is the point of living in a body so broken?

I have spent four and a half years fighting against my circumstances. Fighting against what I thought God had unfairly inflicted on me. Why me, God? Why this?

I have refused to see my health problems as anything but a curse– problems to be solved. I have put my entire hope into doctors, therapists, and anyone who claims to know how to heal me. I have put my hope into physical healing. I have idolized health as the ultimate goal of my life.

And finally, as my health problems multiply and seem to get worse instead of better, I have learned a secret:

The secret of acceptance.

After four and a half years, God has broken through to me in a way I can finally understand. That all this time He has not been absent– He has been very near. That in fact the very circumstances of my life and my health that I have rejected have been the ones that He has been using to draw me to Him.

Suffering has a way of doing that.

I think I’m only just beginning to understand it, but perhaps all this time this suffering has actually been a gift. Perhaps without it, I would never have had to rely on God deeply and develop the relationship that I have with Him now. Perhaps I would never understand the deeper realities of Him and His Kingdom.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Matthew 5:3-4

Maybe the goal is not to be the most comfortable and happy in this life. Maybe I’ve had it wrong all this time and it’s actually the suffering that refines me and helps me to see the greater opportunity of comfort and happiness in Him.

If this life is all there is, then of course we should try to make ourselves as comfortable as possible here. By all means we should pursue our own happiness.

But if there is more, if in fact we are only living in a shadow of what is to come– an eternity with the King of Love– then maybe, just maybe, this life is training grounds. And part of that training includes how we respond when life doesn’t go the way we want it to.

I’ve realized I’ve only compounded my suffering by the ways I’ve responded to it. And God offers a much, much better way: to run to Him.

Because He already knows. He knows my every thought, every single hair on my head. He knows this is not the way I would’ve chosen. But He has chosen this way for me because He loves me.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:8-9

What if there is so much more to my own story than I can see right now? What if all of this suffering is not meaningless, but is actually paving the way to a more glorious outcome than I could ever imagine? And even if I don’t see that outcome in this life, I have a guarantee that I will when I see Him face to face.

So whether or not I am physically healed, I can look forward to the new and perfect body I will have in Heaven, after I have run the race He has called me to. And for now, I can choose to see everything in my life– both good and bad– as blessings from His hand.

health, thoughts

no matter what: trusting God with my health

alyssapebbles

I’ve written about my health struggles before, but as I go through a new season of chronic anemia, once again I am presented with the choice of either faith or bitterness.

These past few months, every morning I wake up to get up and feed my little one, I feel as though I haven’t slept at all––even though I’ve gotten a solid seven or eight hours. This is pretty much how I feel the rest of the day. I have to go back to bed during my baby’s first morning nap, forsaking any other tasks I may have wanted to get done.

Any energy I do have is spent wrangling an almost-toddler into his clothes for the day and keeping a constant eye on him as he gets himself into all sorts of trouble. I have to take another nap during his afternoon one if I have any hope of surviving the rest of the day, once again putting off tasks so that I can get the rest I need.

We moved to our new house over a month ago and I still haven’t been able to go on a run because I just haven’t had the energy. I have to oh-so-carefully plan my days so that I don’t overload myself with the increasingly limited energy I do have.

Needless to say, it is beyond frustrating to function at this capacity. Any additional stressors throughout my days (which are many, of course) tip me over the edge because I am already at my end. Being exhausted all the time is exhausting––go figure. I have nothing left for my husband or even for myself at the end of the day.

I find myself growing angrier with each day that I wake up continuing to feel like this. I am irritable and depressed, anxious and hopeless. Why are you putting me through this, God? Why can’t you just heal me?

I know I am echoing the cries of so many others, so many saints who have endured prolonged suffering. And I know that my suffering is probably only a shadow compared to what some have to go through. But it is still suffering, and it is still unbearable at times.

I will admit that most days I let my suffering overcome and defeat me. Instead of reaching out to God and bringing my pain to Him, I shut down and play the victim. I feel sorry for myself and become consumed in my own pain. I wallow.

But recently I came across a psychological term that I had heard of before but never looked deeply into: radical acceptance. It means accepting your circumstances exactly as they are without judging or reacting to them. For some reason, this seemed incredibly profound to me, and I realized its because I’ve been doing the exact opposite––I have completely rejected my circumstances, and by doing so have compounded my suffering.

When we reject the circumstances God has given us, we expend all our energy trying to change things that can’t be changed. We run ourselves ragged by focusing on all that’s wrong, which burns us out and leads us to despair.

What we pay attention to is what we become. If we are so consumed by our suffering, we will only become more bitter, angry and despondent. But if we focus on Christ and His goodness in the midst of our suffering, we will begin to move forward in faith.

Focusing on God in the middle of our suffering often looks like lament. But it is so much better to release our negative feelings to Him than to internalize them or take them out on everyone around us. He knows what to do with them. He knows how to transform them. I can’t will my heart into submission to Him, but He can do it for me through His Spirit.

Even if all I can do is repeat a single passage of Scripture over and over in my mind, He can use that to change my heart. And once my heart is changed, it no longer matters whether the suffering continues or not.

It takes great maturity to get to the place where we love and trust God no matter what. No matter how we are feeling or what is taking place in our life. I can’t say I am anywhere near that level of faith or maturity yet, but I want to be. And God sees my desire and He can use it.

We are guaranteed suffering in this life:

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

John 16:33

It is not in our circumstances that we will find peace. We may think that once everything is going the way we want it to we will finally have peace and joy, but this is not so. If we can’t find peace in Him right now, in the middle of what we are going through, we never will.

As much as I wish I could just be a normal, healthy young adult, God has had a different plan for my life. It’s not the suffering I would have chosen, and it often doesn’t feel noble, holy, or even meaningful. I often don’t understand why I have to go through this.

But I am comforted by the fact that He is a “man of sorrows” who knows my pain and is with me in it. I don’t know when or if He will choose to heal me, but I’m learning to be a steward of the energy I do have and the resources He has given me.

He is not hard on me the way I am hard on myself. He doesn’t expect me to conquer the world––He only expects me to trust Him, no matter what.