Endurance in The Face of Suffering
“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” – C.S. Lewis
To allow God into our lives to provide healing, guidance, and grace over our pain is an incredibly vulnerable decision to make. But it is just that: a decision. God will never force us to choose Him, and if we do, He does not guarantee that everything will be comfortable all the time; however, a promise I cling to when the race set before me seems impossibly long is that He longs to make me more in His likeness every day. It hurts Him to see me suffer. It brings Him joy to heal me, even if that healing process requires an endurance that is more painful than I could have imagined.
When facing trauma, mental illness, or eating disorders, endurance can sometimes feel impossible. The effort of putting even one foot in front of the other can be so astronomical that it might feel pointless. This can be discouraging because of the misconception that healing is supposed to be easy. “Am I doing something wrong?” might be a common doubt among those who are desperately seeking relief.
There is no correct way to heal. As much as we wish it to be so, healing is not linear. It is a long and arduous process which must begin again every day at the feet of the One who calls us Beloved. He will never turn us away from that surrender, He will never abandon us to the aimless wandering of our pain. If we allow Him, He can and will transform our suffering into a molding tool that makes us more and more like Him every single day.
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance produces character; and character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” – Romans 5:1-5
-Kit Archer, Intern (Family member of someone who recovered from an eating disorder.)
To learn more about God and Recovery, check out our other blog post, "What does God have to do with Recovery?"
