Suffering and Spiritual Formation
Last year, I had a wonderful conversation with a young, vibrant, and engaging local pastor. Near the end of our talk, he asked me earnestly, “What is the most spiritually formative thing in your life?” Based on our dialogue, he fully expected me to respond with “the Bible.” However, I immediately replied, “Suffering. Bar none, suffering has been the most effective catalyst in my quest to become more like Jesus.”
He may not have considered me much of a follower of Jesus after that, but some truths can’t be read. They just need to be experienced.
Though I’ve briefly mentioned to you before that I suffer from a chronic illness, I rarely write about it or talk about it in public. However, we are exploring “time” as a necessary element in our journey to become more like Jesus. We all suffer in time. And if suffering truly has the potential to help form us more like Jesus, it’s worth taking a closer look.
The Illness That Isn’t
In September of 2023, I began experiencing random, odd physical and psychological symptoms. At first, they occurred every few weeks, but by Christmas, the symptoms had become more severe and frequent. I spent all of January and most of February homebound, unable and unwilling to leave, except for a flurry of doctor appointments.
At some point, I made a list of all of the issues I experienced, and they ranged from bouts of debilitating depression and anxiety to digestive problems, muscle pains, heart palpitations, raging hunger (without the desire to eat), and a sense of being chronically “amped up” for no reason. It seemed any and all of my bodily systems were subject to whatever was attacking me.
I spent six months bouncing from specialist to specialist and was tested for everything from adrenal tumors to blood disorders to cancer. Time and again, the doctors shrugged and diagnosed me with anxiety, which seems to have become a catchall for “We don’t know.” When I would politely ask what might be the source of this sudden and debilitating mental illness, they shrugged and suggested I see a therapist.
Frustrated by the lack of definitive results, I ventured slightly outside the traditional medical scene and encountered a physician more like a detective. After numerous rounds of more testing, she concluded I have “Chronic Lyme Disease.” It also brought a few of its bacterial friends – known as “co-infections.”
While I was glad to have a reasonable diagnosis, I was not as excited by the fact that the medical community hotly debates the existence, treatments, and testing methods for Lyme Disease. Apparently, if you realize you have it early enough (probably because you can see the tick bite that causes it), a few rounds of antibiotics get you back on your feet. However, if the initial diagnosis is missed, or you don’t have symptoms until much later, you fall into the 15 or so percent of the Lyme population who are deemed “chronic.”
Lucky me.
No Quick Fix
Though I can’t attest to the validity of the diagnostic testing, I can attest that treating Chronic Lyme is a long, expensive process of trial and error.
The Harvard Gazette’s Ross Douthat wrote about his five-year battle with Lyme and was interviewed by a fellow journalist about his struggle.
There is a longstanding pattern where chronic illnesses are initially regarded as forms of hysteria and hypochondria. Only over a long period of time do they get recognized as having pathogenic and physical concepts. In the early days of studying multiple sclerosis, lots of people assumed that it was some hysterical or psychosomatic illness. Similarly, with chronic fatigue syndrome, there’s been a long struggle to get doctors in the medical system to take it seriously. What we’re seeing with long-term COVID is a sort of accelerated version of that.
With Lyme disease, though, it’s a little bit distinctive, because with a lot of other diseases, there’s a real struggle to figure out what could cause them. With Lyme, there’s no question. Lyme is a tick-borne illness. A lot of chronic sufferers feel like it should be easier to break through and get care, but for some reason, that hasn’t changed this fundamental and recurring pattern where chronic illness is just met with skepticism and disbelief, no matter what form it takes.
In other words, many who suffer from chronic illnesses such as Lyme Disease not only contend with the physical and mental symptoms but with skepticism and doubt from friends, family, and members of the medical community.
The Choice
It’s been a year and a half since I first fell ill; fortunately, I’ve made good progress. I’m far more functional, learning to manage and cope with sudden and random symptoms, and generally pretty adept at keeping my mind in a good place. There are many things I can’t yet do, but many I can.
If you or a loved one has fought any chronic illness, be it physical or mental, I suspect you resonate with my story. And you know that, at some point along the way, we have a choice. Maybe the choice is made once, or perhaps it is a day-by-day decision. The choice is this: if I’m to spend time in suffering, how will I respond to it?
I’m not sure how I would grade myself (or how Jessica, my wife, would grade me) on how well I’ve dealt with this condition, but I do know this: shared suffering is a whole lot easier to contend with than suffering in isolation.
Perhaps that is the real choice. We all suffer. But do we invite trusted friends into our suffering so that it is transformed, or do we suffer in silence because we don’t want to show our weakness and vulnerability, even if our hearts become callous and malignant as a result?
A friend has led a small group in his church for many years. Some time ago, a long-standing couple in the group suddenly announced they were splitting up and getting a divorce. No one else in the group knew the marriage had tensions and struggles. Their friends were stunned, sad, and deeply disappointed that their small group (a place many churches claim is where discipleship is supposed to happen) failed to cultivate an environment where the struggling couple could find soft hearts, listening ears, and help for their crumbling relationship. They suffered in isolation and silence. They made their choice.
Ross Douthat made another choice, which he humorously relates here:
One unexpected lesson was to learn how many people go through, not Lyme disease per se, but some version of pain or suffering. When I was sick, I lost my filter. I didn’t write about it, but I would tell anyone how I was doing, and they got probably more than they expected out of that conversation (laughs). But when you opened up, they would open up too and share a story of suffering about their own life or a loved one’s life that was hidden in everyday experience. Everyone knows that everybody ages, gets sick, and dies, but there’s still a lot of concealment of how much suffering there is among very privileged and successful people. It was not just an education in my own suffering, but an education on how commonplace these kinds of falls and secret challenges can be.
Douthat decided to be vulnerable (perhaps a little too much) and found that sharing his suffering with tender-hearted people was… healing. I suspect some of us are comfortable engaging in this type of intimacy when it involves the loss of a loved one or something life-threatening, such as cancer. But are we as willing if our suffering is aged, subtle, and sits quietly under the surface of our hearts?
I suspect this is what Paul meant when he wrote about the “fellowship of suffering.” Not only do we find commonality and kinship with Jesus when we share our sufferings, but we also find it among our brothers and sisters.
Surrender
Strahan Coleman, author of the book Beholding, has suffered from an undiagnosed sickness for years, which has brought along the inevitable loneliness, isolation, and bouts of anxiety and depression. Yet he has picked up on another crucial component of allowing suffering to be a guide in our journey to become like Jesus.
Existence was hard enough without the existential madness of sharing it with God. My theology was being shaken and shattered, and I didn’t know how to commune with Someone who no longer made any sense to me. Was true communion something only those with a clear enough mind or enough physical strength could have? Suddenly, I felt very “unspiritual.” God was in the dark.
But then something important happened. I gave up.
I gave up on being able to pray, on understanding what was going on with me, on waiting for it all to be fixed, and on needing answers. I gave up on trying to perform my way into God’s heart, too.
I was slowly learning that God either loved me or He didn’t, and if my ability to pray well, do good Christian things, or live some idealized way of life had more power to affect that love than my simply existing, then I couldn’t do anything about it in my present, unable state.
I’m not quite there yet. Surrender, for me, is a process and not an event.
Deeper Magic
Still, suffering has the potential to soften us (if we allow it), perhaps because of what Coleman expresses so well. Our hearts are invited to let go of the idea that God only loves us because of what we can do for Him. There’s a freedom in there somewhere.
If we allow it, suffering can help us live more authentically. We need not present ourselves to others with the veneers and sheen we so often do. Suffering has a way of stripping us down to our bones, encouraging us to engage with others without our shadows or false selves.
One thing’s for sure: we find out who our real friends are when we live authentically in our suffering. Only those who genuinely love us and seek our goodness will sit with us as we wrestle, question, and rail against God for the injustice of it all.
And lastly, there is a real, guttural, embodied experience with Jesus into which suffering invites us. After all, if we choose to become more like Jesus, we might reasonably expect our lives to look more like His. Betrayal, rejection, abandonment. Physical and emotional pain.
Yet, at the same time, a deeper awareness and attunement develop, propelling our discipleship journey forward. A hope far richer than before slowly takes root in our hearts, even as we ask unanswerable questions—or perhaps because we accept that some questions are unanswerable.
It seems that very real, good questions about the existence of evil, pain, and suffering either drive us away from God or compel us to seek Him. Those who sit somewhere in the middle don’t seem as alive as the rest.
It’s one thing to raise these topics in a classroom, but it’s another for them to become part of our daily reality.
Are we disciples who share our sufferings with others and invite them to do the same, even if it is repetitive and time-consuming? Have we allowed our sufferings to soften us and make us more authentic, or have we allowed our false selves to play a more prominent role?
Though we wrestle with our sufferings and desperately pray for relief, do we permit them to draw us just a little deeper, a little closer, a little more attuned to God’s heart, our hearts, and those around us?
It is my prayer this week that, if you or a loved one finds themselves suffering, you might experience the transformation of that suffering when it is shared, surrender to its formative potential, and embrace God’s invitation to allow it to move us just a little closer to the heart of His Son.
