“Everyone thinks I’m okay”

I sat with a friend recently, warming my hands over a fire pit as the nights here in Colorado begin to slide into fall. What she and her family have been through is nothing short of horrific, and it felt sacred to listen to her story in relative silence.

They’re on the other side of tragedy now–the side they weren’t sure they’d ever see. But because they made it through the trauma, she explained quietly, everyone thought they were okay now.

The bad is behind. They can get back to normal, no harm, no foul. Right?

But anyone who’s slogged through real-life trauma knows…it stains. Everyone thinks I’m okay.

In fact, it changes your eyesight. You no longer see the world the same way.

“Everyone thinks I’m okay”–but I’m different now

Think of Frodo Baggins at the end of The Return of the King.  He managed to fulfill his life’s purpose, casting the Ring of Power into Mount Doom.

But after all he’s seen, after all he’s lost, he can’t go back to life in the Shire. His friends are raising steins of ale, but he’s subdued, removed.

Suffering inevitably has a sobering effect. We sink into the realities of Ecclesiastes:

All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. (1:8, 4:1-2)

On the side of suffering creating wisdom, Tim Keller points out deep pain potentially

• Transforms our attitude toward ourselves, humbling us and removing unrealistic self-regard and pride
• Will profoundly change our relationship to the good things in our lives—things that have become too important. We rearrange priorities, investing more of our hope and meaning in God, family, and others.
• Can strengthen our relationship to God as nothing else can—and fortify our relationships with other people
• Makes us far more useful in compassion toward other people.
• Makes us more resilient, wiser, and more realistic about life…or harden us.

But my friend on the other side of the fire that night isn’t the only friend who’s found themselves alone after the season of phone calls and casseroles.

So many women I’ve spoken to find themselves still reeling, scraping up their lives with the blades of their hands, following loss.  And the rest of the world has moved on from them and their tragedy.

If you’re in this boat, you might believe there’s a shelf life to your grief and the resulting fear–and that yours is past its expiration date. 

Your whole story matters

But far more than yanking yourself up by the bootstraps, you may find you can’t just tell yourself some version of the truth about God–“The Bible says to rejoice! Have a cookie”–and detach from your story.

I love the words of Aundi Kolber, the author of Try Softer: A Fresh Approach to Move Us out of Anxiety, Stress, and Survival Mode-and into a Life of Connection and Joy.

When we deny the reality of our experiences, we don’t become more of who God designed us to be, but less.

There’s no way to have cohesive stories unless we truly embrace all of it: the good, the hard, the bittersweet, the sad, the joyful, the lonely, and the painful. It all counts. If we know something else to be true, it’s this: God is a curator and keeper of stories. Psalm 56:8 says, “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book” (NLT). God is invested in the entire arc of our humanity.

…. I’ve watched this transformation take place in many people’s lives as they’ve become compassionate witnesses to the pain they’ve experienced or the parts of themselves that have felt too much.

When you’re just making it through

Kolber, a trauma therapist, knows the realities of “everyone thinks I’m okay.” She writes that we may be “white-knuckling” through pain when we

• ignore signs of pain, hunger, or exhaustion; minimize our emotions (“Oh, it’s not that bad”)
• find ourselves overwhelmed by big emotions we’ve ignored too long
• numb our emotions (food, TV…)
• say yes when we mean no
• bounce between feeling motivated by and then overwhelmed by adrenaline
• go through seasons of profound exhaustion, depression, or numbness because we’ve been overfunctioning

There’s a need for us as image-bearers of God to be unified people, where everything’s connected and all the parts of us are talking to each other (see, too, Ephesians 4:25 for how this applies socially). This brings to mind the shemah in the Old Testament: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

He holds all things together (Colossians 1:17), making our stories and selves cohesive, whole, and eventually, unbroken. So the need you’re feeling to bring your emotions and soul along is godly, in my mind, even if this takes years.

Ideas: if you or a friend are still not okay

This is going to sound counterintuitive, but I believe healing involves leaning into all of it. Not away. 

Speaking with another friend recently who was processing severe health concerns, she acknowledged her typical strategy to deal with these hard emotions is to keep going.

But I had to reflect on some of the places that have brought me into the heart of God.

I wanted to tell her, Lean in. Lean into this, because entering in during this season is where you will meet God like you’ve never met him before.

Otherwise, this part in us can atrophy as it loses mobility and emotional blood supply. We can lose the ability to interact with God on this level.

Author Ruth Haley Barton mentions a spiritual director’s words to her–that she was like a  jar of river water, which needed to settle in order to see what’s really there.

Consider these few ideas.

I could go on for days on this topic. But consider these.

• Relentlessly orchestrate space to listen to God: to be quiet, thoughtful, and meditative about how he responds to each of your griefs, angers, fears, and sources of shame. Don’t be duplicitous in being with him. Bring in all your questions.
• Prayerfully identify a few safe relationships that will help you unpack all that’s happened. Request that they ask you questions, and specifically tell them you need help processing over the next several months. Invite them into the most unkempt areas of your life.
• Journal like the dickens, perhaps even with a guided journal. Understand that grief and trauma will toss up new losses, questions, and emotions by the day. As I ask a friend who lost her husband, What are you missing this week?
• See a counselor.
• Increase awareness of your emotions by using a printable emotions wheel.
• Making time for daily rhythms of mourning and gratitude, like the Prayer of Examen.
• Name your losses.
• Writing a personal lament to express grief, perhaps using Scripture.
• Create art, poetry, or music to express your emotion.
• Memorize, post in your home, meditate on, and rehearse verses that reinforce God as a refuge for pouring out your heart (like Psalm 22:4-5, 42:4, 62:8, 142:2; Philippians 4:6-7).
• Slow down or say “no” to an activity in daily life, so you have space to process my emotions with God.
• Read a book to encourage emotionally healthy spirituality, like Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, by Peter Scazzero or Try Softer by Aundi Kolber  

The good news: God still defines himself by resurrection, by redemption.

You may not be okay now. But on this planet or in eternity–hope’s a’comin.

Lord, we pray we never find ourselves without hope, without a glimpse of the empty tomb each time we happen upon a cross. Help us begin our daily journey expecting both crosses and empty tombs and rejoicing when we encounter either because we know you are with us.

– Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals