The Great Exchange: My Secret to Living in Joy
I’m the last person to think being in pain is fun. I’m the fastest to avoid it, push it away, or pretend it’s not there. I even remember a time in my young adult life when I prided myself on being unhurtable and never crying or even needing to.
After I gave my life fully to Jesus, I let Him begin to soften my heart. A few months later, I got in an argument with my dad and I drove away realizing my heart hurt from the pain of the conflict for the first time in a very long time. I noticed I could feel pain again. And I remember consciously choosing to continue down that heart tenderizing path with God because I felt it was worth it to feel the full spectrum of emotions, positive and negative, instead of living a life of numb emptiness. If that’s what you want for yourself, too, then this blog on processing pain is for you.
The Freedom to Cry
Fast forward to married life and trying to conceive, and the pain of infertility sadly became a normal everyday experience. I could feel the pull to go back to my old heart-numbing tricks. But someone along the way told me, “you know it’s good for you to cry when you’re sad.” It was one wise voice in a broad culture of “suck it up!” and “just try to be happy!” with a few “it’s best to be strong when you’re down” for good measure. I listened to that one, small but wise voice amid the emotionless stoic norms of our day. I cried. I gave myself permission to actually cry when I was sad.
If you consider the behavior of children for one moment and their natural ability to express emotion, you can see that from birth, emotions are innate in humans. They laugh and cry easily and often. I’m not suggesting we emote like babies, but emotions are, in many ways, trained out of us as we grow up. We become hard and crusty old people full of bitterness, unable to empathize with anyone else’s pain. How many times did you hear the term “crybaby” used as an insult in your childhood? We are taught that it’s childish or immature to cry or be sad when we are feeling those emotions.
It took a conscious decision years ago to let myself cry and feel the sadness when I was overwhelmed with the pain of infertility. I committed to processing pain instead of avoiding it. I cried, I journaled, I talked to God, and I believed in faith He was with me. I used some of the practices laid out in this blog “4 Ways to Hear God’s Voice” and something revolutionary happened. I found something (or I should say “someone”) I had not known before. I found the Comforter.
In the Midst of Processing Pain, God is the Comforter
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4
Let that sink in for a moment. He is the God of all comfort! There is no other greater comfort than God Himself.
In the Beatitudes of Matthew 5 Jesus states, “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.”
There is a blessing in mourning and that is found in knowing the person of the Comforter. You cannot receive that blessing if you don’t actually go through the process of mourning what is grieving your heart.
It’s real guys. He really does what He says He does. I found Him. He is so incredibly available. He is very comforting and present. He is not some far off God, unaware of your sadness. He is right next to you, feeling your pain with you, extending empathy and surrounding you with His warmth. I know because I have experienced it over and over and over.
You Can Be Real with God
If there is an unawareness of His closeness, it is due to beliefs we hold that are not based in truth. The more truth we believe and realize about who He really is, the more we can access the actual existence of Him in our lives. For example, if we believe deep down God is not present, we won’t experience Him as present because our beliefs reject the possibility of that reality to be experienced. Conversely, if we are convinced He is present and loves to be with us, we will experience Him in our everyday lives like a friend who loves to be around us.
I found that He was safe to be real with. Sometimes that meant I would be angry with Him. My heart’s cry sounded something like this, “Why God have you given me these promises of having children but you’re not giving us a child! You keep telling me over and over that this child will be born and yet it seems like you’re holding out on me! How long am I supposed to hold on?”
Honesty with God Creates Trust
As I read the Bible, I noticed David in the Psalms had similar sentiments - and yet he was called “a man after God’s own heart.” I was able to express my anger, sadness, and frustration with God and I only felt His comfort in return. I would also couple my expression with repentance, knowing He is perfect and has done nothing wrong. Let me be clear, He is sovereign. I am a human with limited understanding, standing before a God who knows all and is also perfect and loving in all His ways. I discovered that after expressing my true emotions to God, and receiving comfort from Him, I would return back to deep trust and refreshment of hope for the journey I was on.
Notice how David in so many of his Psalms ends with “Yet I trust in God.” I believe he came to that conclusion because he spent the whole Psalm expressing his whole heart and was drawing close to the Lord in the process. That is the power of processing with God. Without that ability to be real and come close to God, I would disconnect from Him and distance my heart, turning instead to a dutiful religion without relationship. He is safe to be real with.
A Beautiful Exchange: from Processing Pain to Receiving Comfort
Isaiah 61 “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, Because the Lord has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn, To console those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”
There is a beautiful exchange with the Lord. He takes our pain, our grief, our broken hearts and He heals, comforts and consoles and the outcome is we receive beauty, freedom and JOY. He lifts up our heads, breaks off heaviness and gives us vision.
He saved me from a life of despair during 16 years of childlessness. There is no pain too big, no loss too difficult that He can’t comfort.
Infertility is a unique sort of pain in that it is continuous until it is answered or settled in the heart. With 16 years of childlessness, I have been around the pain processing bend in the road on the regular. It’s given me ample time to practice coming to God with it and I have only fallen more deeply in love with the Comforter. The deeper the pain, the deeper the comfort. The greater the grief, the greater the beauty of the One who is right next to me in it. He saved me from a life of despair during 16 years of childlessness. There is no pain too big, no loss too difficult that He can’t comfort.
When Processing Pain Feels Overwhelming
Some people say, I’m afraid if I let myself feel the pain, it will be too overwhelming or too much. Valid point. If you’ve had intense trauma, I recommend seeing a good trauma counselor or therapist to assist you on your healing journey. I’ve seen several therapists over the years and am so grateful for the help I’ve received. Ultimately, God is the good Shepherd of your soul (1 Peter 2:25) and knows what you need and when you need it. If there is pain at the surface it could be a good start to let some tears out with God and spend some minutes receiving His comfort. Click here to see my video “3 Practical Keys to Processing Emotional Pain.”
Pain can be overwhelming if we sit in the negative feelings without letting God come close with comfort. I see it less like a swamp and more like a river. Our goal is not to sit in our sadness and let it stay and dwell forever in a bog of negativity, but rather to let pain out so it can float away and we can be refreshed with the comfort of God in exchange.
Final Thoughts on Processing Pain to Live in Joy
We don’t want our emotions to run our life and we don’t want to bury them. A wise friend once said to me: “We don’t want our emotions driving the car and we also don’t want them locked in the trunk.” Our emotions should not rule our lives, but many people don’t even know what their true emotions are or what has been locked up in their hearts for years. The goal is to process pain, empty it out of your soul, receive comfort and thereby healing. I pray as you process pain in your life that you will find that great exchange of peace in your soul that gives space for joy to reside.
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