Recently a friend reached out struggling with a difficult life circumstance. She said the words we have all breathed at some point, “I just want to be over this!” And while that is an aspiration for us all when in pain, the unfortunate reality is there is very rarely a way to be just “over” it. We simply have to go through it.
Going Through It
One of my favorite children’s books is Going on a Bear Hunt. I love the cadence, rhyming, and simplicity of its message. But I also recognized its relevance to our lives, and the struggles we face.
If you’ve not read the book before, it uses various words to describe what the family must do to go on a bear hunt. The first one is tall thick grass that is “swishy swashy”; it continues through the cold, the mud, and so on. The swishy swashy is the one that got my attention.
How many of us have faced landscapes we didn’t think possible: a divorce, grief, illness, job loss, and more. We looked at the swaying thick mire and wondered, “How am I supposed to get through this?” And we want to do anything but go through it. However, the refrain of the book is poignant, “We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it. We gotta go through it.” Going through it is often the last thing we want to do, but the most necessary.
Going through the heartaches and hurts of life is not something new to our world. David had to go through his calamity to understand the presence of God, the Israelites had to go through the Red Sea and desert to make it to the promise land, Job had to lose everything to receive the blessing, and Jesus had to go through death so we could receive life.
Each of us has to through the hardest moments for various reasons. How would life be different today if David, the Israelites, Jesus would have gone over or under it? How different would your life, my life, be if we did not go through what was before us? Would we know strength, compassion, empathy, hope, and love as we do? Would we appreciate the power and might of Christ? Could we speak truth and hope into others?
While none of us want the hard circumstances as a part of our life, neither does God. He created us to experience life at its fullest, but due to the fall, we face life outside of Eden. Learning to navigate the swishy, swashy stretches of life means making room for what hurts, receiving support, and trusting that God’s presence accompanies us through it.
Three Ways to go Through It
1) Acknowledge what we are facing
God does not ask us to deny our circumstances to be holy. We can acknowledge our circumstances and the pain they bring. This is not complaining or a lack of faith. It is simply stating the facts of our hurt.
David proclaimed in Psalm 40:1-2, “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.” First, notice that he cried out. He acknowledged his circumstances. Secondly, we can see that he did not go over or under the slimy pit; he was in it. Lastly, he could not make it out of the pit on his own. He asked for help.
We cannot ask for help if we do not acknowledge the pain we are enduring. We also cannot ask for help while trying to escape, “get over,” something. However, if we acknowledge our pain, we can walk through it to reach the healing side of our circumstances.
2) Accepting the journey
None of us want to be on a journey through hardships. Not too many of us wake up proclaiming, “I am so excited to hurt today!” We most likely cry out like David in many of his Psalms, “How long, Lord?” (Psalms 13:1, Psalms 35:17, Psalms 79:5, Psalms 89:46). We want to know the day, time, down to the minute of when the pain will stop. Yet, very rarely is that information supplied.
Instead, our journey is much like the Israelites: in stages, in stops and starts. Numbers 33 records the journey of the Israelites after leaving Egypt. In chapter 33 alone there are 42 “starts and stops” on the journeys! And there was no other way to the promise land but to go through these ups, downs, stages, and stops and starts. And they did it. They made it to their promise land.
Most likely we do not want the difficult journey before us, the hurt, heartache, sickness, grief, and more. Yet here we are. Rather than attempting to fight the journey and delaying the road before us, we would be wise to begin taking the steps on the journey. It is in going through the journey we move toward the healing from it.
3) Enduring the Journey
Tasha Layton wrote a beautiful song, “Meet me in the Valley.” The line that has pierced me most is “What you said on the mountain is still true in the valley.” I know I have forgotten about the mountain top promises of God at times when I have been in the valley. Instead, I have gotten angry, frustrated, defiant and sad in the valley believing that God must have lost sight of me.
And He allowed me space for this. He allows it for you too.
Endurance of the journey we may be on does not mean we do not feel our hurt, get angry, or even doubt God. We do not have to “faith it” until we make it. God makes room for our weariness (Matthew 11:28), our anxiety (1 Peter 5:7), our grief (1 Peter 1:6), as well as our cries and laments (Psalm 22:1-5). Having faith does not mean we will be pain-free on our journey. Faith sometimes grows stronger in the endurance, in the tears, in the laments, not in the lack of them.
Final Thoughts
Swishy, swashy journeys are a part of life. We cannot go over it or under it; we’ve got to go through it. We begin by acknowledging where we are and allowing ourselves room to heal. There will be starts and stops, steps forward and moments of pain. Healing is rarely linear. Yet God makes room for us along way – to grieve, rest, ask questions, and begin the journey again. With God’s presence and with safe support, we can travel our journey to reach the place we long for: our promise land, our land of milk and honey, our place of healing.