Suffering

I have struggled off and on with my relationship with God during the past year.  Before I began therapy, I had a rather distant, intellectual relationship with Him.  But I wanted more.  Little did I know what I was asking for.  Because the fruit of a closer relationship with my Father has been borne through deep emotional pain.

We fail to see the place of suffering in the broader scheme of things. We fail to see that suffering is an inevitable dimension of life. Because we have lost perspective, we fail to see the quest for maturity. To refuse suffering is to refuse personal growth.
Henri J. M. Nouwen

As I have experienced suffering, I have prayed fervently for relief.  I have been desperate—just the place God wanted me to be.  Stripped of all self-reliance, I could begin to truly rest in the love and will of my Father.  I am learning through the difficult times—those are the times when the still, small voice whispers loving words in my ear.  When I have been completely at my wit’s end, my Father has comforted me.  He has guided me when I felt like I could not take one more step.

But then I make it through that crisis, and I slide back into long-standing patterns of trusting myself.  That never turns out well.  The need for control is so great in my heart; I am in a tug-of-war with God.  I give it to him, only to take it back when life supports the mirage that there is any way that I can control even a single moment.

What are you afraid of? Let God act. Abandon yourself to Him. You will suffer, but you will suffer with love, peace and consolation. You will fight, but you can carry off the victory, and God Himself, after having fought with you, will crown you with His own hand. You will weep, but your tears will be sweet, and God Himself will come with satisfaction to dry them. You will not be free any longer to give yourself up to your tyrannic passions, but you will sacrifice your liberty freely, and you will enter into a new liberty unknown to the world, in which you will do nothing except for love.
Francois Fenelon

I feel impossibly stretched beyond my comfort zone.  As I abandon control one teensy piece at a time, I find a richness in experiences that the former me would have cringed at.  My worldly desires, preconceptions, and misplaced religiosity give way to the liberty of living truly loved.