The Paradox of Suffering
No one wants to suffer. If we all had a choice, we would choose the painless way. Left to our instinctive impulse, ease and comfort would win 100% of the time. This isn’t bad, it’s just human nature. You could argue, it’s a part of us deep down that recognizes that pain, suffering (and ultimately death) are intruders in Creation.
In his book, “Count it All Joy: The Ridiculous Paradox of Suffering”, a 90+ year old John M. Perkins describes two distinct types of suffering: Suffering that chooses you (“…it doesn’t have anything to do with something you did to deserve it. It comes unexpectedly and can shake the foundations of your life”); and Suffering that you choose (“…it’s when you choose to die to self and pour out your life as an offering to the Lord…”).
For Perkins, the suffering that he chose included the difficult journey of justice campaigning for civil rights and experiencing things like severe beatings in jail by Mississippi jailers. In fact, this willful suffering led to the first type of suffering in many cases. For example, years of beatings and surgeries to correct damage done by these beatings led to layers of internal scar tissue. This scar tissue obscured a growing colon cancer at age 90, that afflicted Perkins with severe stomach and intestinal pain and led to aggressive surgery to remove the tumor buried beneath that scar tissue. Perkins describes a particularly acute moment of suffering while recovering from the surgery:
”Anyone who has had surgery knows that the hardest part for the patient is after doctors close up the wound and you come off the anesthesia. My surgeon told me that they had to be careful with the medicine. There is a thin line between giving too much and not enough. Too much will kill you. Not enough causes you to suffer. For me that was when the dark night of the soul carried me away in a kind of pain and agony that I had never experienced before. I don't have words for that kind of pain. I was told that a lot of what I said did not make sense. When the pain was at its worst and I could no longer bear it, everything went dark. It got quiet and I was in a coma-how long, I don't know. I woke up just briefly and went back into a deep, deep sleep for hours.
When I finally woke up, the pain was still there, but I noticed something else. I felt a different sense of peace. It's hard to explain and put into words. During my time of deep sleep, I dreamed of blocks that all had the word "meaning" printed on every side. And I felt the presence of the Lord. I finally understood that all of life is wrapped up in Him. When He said that He had come that we might have abundant life, that abundant life is a meaningful life, full of His presence.”
(“Count it All Joy: The Ridiculous Paradox of Suffering”, John M. Perkins, pg. 15)
The parallels to caregiving are profound. While there, is and can be many ready moments of meaning we feel in caregiving, there are also many dark nights of the soul. The suffering can be intense, both as we watch the intense suffering of our loved ones, but as we experience the suffering brought on by the emotional and psychological blast radius of that turmoil. This is that “suffering that chooses us”. No one asks for a dementia decline, for an ominous cancer diagnosis, for post traumatic stress, for a child with severe special needs, for what feels like apathetic medical community concern.
What amazes me, however, is how those in the caregiver community willingly choose a type of suffering that comes with taking up their cross, denying their own ambitions, conveniences, and comfort for the sake of serving a loved one who clearly can’t make it alone. It’s intrinsic to the caregiver calling, a prerequisite of letting go of self-concern and prioritization.
Perkins’ dream of blocks with “meaning” printed all over them was prophetic for us as well. We can feel that time is stripping away and tearing down meaning and purpose when we are stuck in the stagnant time warp that is caregiving. We need to be reminded that in the eternal realm, there are blocks of meaning not only being constructed around us, but that the ultimate Builder is hemming us in with protective walls and resurrecting around us His monuments of meaning.
Psalm 62 has long been a Scripture that has brought comfort and resolve in dark nights of the soul:
”For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from Him comes my salvation.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken”.
Caregiver friends, our hope and prayer is that in whatever season (or night) of caregiving you find yourself, you are reminded that the “suffering which has chosen you”, is a suffering deeply infused with meaning. And the “suffering you choose”, in willingly taking up the mantle of a caregiver, is suffering that deeply connects you with Christ, our Rock and our Redeemer.
As a childhood pastor of mine once said, “God doesn’t waste pain”. And I’ll add, “you are no exception to that rule”.
