Recovery is a spiritual journey. Unfortunately, we are often poorly prepared for the twists and turns this spiritual journey will take. We are rarely prepared for the possibility that we will experience spiritual distress as part of the recovery process.
The struggle to face past pain or to address issues of addiction and codependency leads to an honest examination of all of life. We ask difficult and searching questions about God and about our faith. The spiritual distress that comes from this struggle can be confusing and frightening.
For many of us, our first reaction to times of spiritual distress is to assume that we are spiritual failures. Our faith is defective, we think. Good Christians aren’t supposed to get angry at God. We have many ways of shaming ourselves for our spiritual distress.
But spiritual distress is not an indication of spiritual failure. Spiritual distress is more likely to be a sign that God is growing in us a new capacity for relationship with him. Times of distress are often the first steps toward spiritual healing and growth. They are often times when we realize acutely our desire to know and be known by God. When we protest God’s absence, we are expressing our deep longing for closeness with God. When God seems silent, we learn again how much we need to hear his voice. When God seems distant, we realize afresh our strong desire to experience his presence. As a result of spiritual distress, our hearts may become better prepared to hear and receive from God. It is often in the furnace of spiritual distress that purity of heart is formed.
Times of spiritual distress are often an indication that healing is taking place deep within us. It should not surprise us that during recovery we uncover some major struggles in our relationship with God. We may be angry with God. We may doubt God. We may question God. We may long for God. All of this is emotionally painful, but it is the real stuff of real relationships. If we hide ourselves from these thoughts and feelings when they surface, we may be running away from some of the most important healing that we can experience – the healing of our relationship with God.
May God grant you courage in times of spiritual distress. May your spirit flourish as you heal in your relationship with God.
LEAVING GOD
A despairing man should have the devotion of his friends, even though he forsakes the fear of the Almighty. Job 6:14
At some point during the recovery process we re-examine our most fundamental beliefs. A long process of sorting, examining and questioning takes place. And, in that process, our relationship with God is challenged. It is possible that our relationship with God will deepen and strengthen in the process. But it is also possible that we will find ourselves pulling away from God. We may find ourselves angry with God, or afraid of God, or unable to believe in God at all. This can be a frightening experience. It can feel like the very foundations of life are being shaken.
In times like this, we need many things. But at the top of the list is our need for friends who will accept us even if we turn away from God. We need friends who will not minimize our struggle or discount our feelings. We need people who will not be shocked when we are full of rage at God. We need friends who are able to hear the deep pain behind our words and who know that this, too, is part of our healing. We need people who can see beyond the immediate pain to the healing that can come.
Even when we forsake the fear of God, we need friends who understand, who are committed to us for the long haul, and who plead with God on our behalf.
Sometimes I feel agnostic, Lord,
I just don’t know anymore.
Sometimes I want nothing to do with you.
Where were you when I needed you the most?
Sometimes I despair, Lord.
Sometimes I can’t seem to hope.
I need friends who will not abandon me, Lord.
I need friends who will be patient and grace-full with
my anger and fear.
I need friends who will stay with me as we wait for you to
show yourself once again.
I need friends, Lord, who will give me courage to hope
again in you.
Send help, Lord.
Amen.
QUESTIONING OURSELVES
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? Psalm 13:1-2
Sometimes our spiritual distress is centered on questions about God. Where is God? Why doesn’t God help? At other times our spiritual distress is centered on questions about ourselves. What is wrong with me? How come I’m still struggling this much?
Doubts about ourselves can be profoundly troubling. We wonder if our faith will survive the struggle. We wonder if our faith is strong enough. Often we feel like spiritual failures. The kind of spirituality we have been taught does not envision ‘good’ Christians as people who wrestle with their thoughts and are sad everyday. We think of ‘good’ Christians as people who trust God and manage to smile in the midst of any circumstances. When we can’t manage to do this, we question and criticize ourselves.
But wrestling with our thoughts and experiencing sorrow day after day is often a part of the recovery process. It is not a sign of failure to engage in this hard work. It is a sign of courage. And it is a sign that our faith is alive and struggling. People of real faith struggle in life. People of real faith are people who wrestle with thoughts and who feel sorrow in their heart.
Lord, I get so tired of thought-wrestling.
And I am so weary of heart-sorrow.
How long, Lord?
How long does this wrestling and sorrow go on?
Help me, Lord, not to experience this struggle as spiritual failure.
Help me to see this hard work as drawing me closer to you.
Remind me today that you are with me in all of this.
Remind me today that you understand.
Amen.
QUESTIONING GOD
How long, O Lord, must I call for help but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Habakkuk 1:2-3,13
Where were you God? Where were you when I needed you? Didn’t you see the violence? The abuse? The injustice? Didn’t you care? There are times in recovery when we are full of questions about God. The pain of past trauma can be intensified when we begin to struggle with these hard questions about God.
It is important to acknowledge that these questions about God are not academic questions. No theoretical explanation of the problem of pain will soothe our raging, confused hearts. These are urgent, personal questions about God and about his involvement in our lives. We want to know that he sees and cares and intervenes in our lives. We need him. We need his love. We need his help.
It is an important source of encouragement to know that we are not the first to ask these hard questions. There is clear biblical precedent for asking difficult questions about God. People of faith have always struggled with questions like these. We can take comfort and courage from knowing that the psalmist asked urgent questions similar to our own.
God, I am afraid.
I don’t understand.
Violence and abuse happen and you do not stop it.
You seem absent.
You seem uncaring.
I need to know that you see and care.
I am calling to you for help, God.
Please hear me.
Please respond.
Amen.
LONGING FOR GOD
O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Psalm 63:1
When a young child is separated from her parents, she will protest their absence. She will experience sadness, anxiety, anger and a longing for her parents to return. These intense emotions are not a sign of her failure as a child. Her protest is a clear sign of how important her parents are to her, of how much she misses them, of how much she loves them. At certain developmental stages, it is a sign of emotional health for a child to protest separation. At certain ages a healthy child will protest, will be angry, will be afraid, and will long for the parents return.
If one or both of our parents was in some way absent from our lives during our formative years, it will be easy for us to imagine that God will leave us as well. We may experience silence and distance. And we may find ourselves longing for him.
Just as it is good for a child to protest the absence of a parent, it is good for us to protest when we subjectively experience God’s absence. It is good to give voice to our longing for God. It is good to write or pray or talk about our deep need for God’s presence and love. We can call out to him. We can protest his absence.
O God, do not be silent.
Do not be distant.
I miss you when you seem so far away.
I long for you to be close.
I long to know that you care about me.
I long for you, God.
Nothing can replace you.
No one can be God but you.
Do not be silent.
Do not be distant.
Come. Speak.
I need you. Amen.
NEEDING REASSURANCE FROM GOD
Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has born? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Isaiah 40:15-16
We may experience abandonment from a spouse who turns away form us to their addiction of choice. We may experience feeling like we have been rejected by friends. We may struggle with memories of parents who were not compassionate with us. Or memories of parents who ‘forgot’ us in one way or another.
And so we say to God: “you will abandoned and reject and forget me like all the others!”
Sometimes these experiences are so familiar that we expect them from anyone we want to be close to, including God. It is a terrible fear to live with. It creates deep distress.
God responds to our distress with words of reassurance. We are not always able to take in reassurance that is offered to us. But there are times when it can feel like a drink of cool water to our parched throats.
God says “I am not like all the rest. I will not forget you. Even if your parents forgot you, or your spouse turns away, or your friends leave, I will not forget you. I have tattooed you on the palms of my hand”.
I will not forget you.
It may not be easy for us to comprehend, but it is very clear. God says; “I will not forget you.”
I need reassurance, Lord.
I want to believe
that you will remember.
But I have been forgotten before.
I know you are not like that.
I know it in my head.
But my heart forgets so easily.
Reassure me, today, Lord
of your unfailing love.
ACKNOWLEDGING GOD
Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth. Hosea 6:3
There are days when we feel God’s presence. We sense his love. We see his power. But we do not always feel or sense or see. There are times of silence, distance and uncertainty. There are the difficult times of waiting for God to appear. In times like this we may find ourselves both longing for God and fearing that he will come.
The longing comes because in our heart of hearts we know that there is no recovery without his gracious presence. If God does not appear, we are stuck, bound, hopelessly entangled in dysfunction. If God does appear, it will be like the sun rising – we will be able to see the way. It will be like gentle rains which nurture us so that we can grow and thrive.
The fear comes because often we do not see God as one who comes as ‘sun’ and ‘rain’ to give life. We are afraid that when God does appear, it will be to punish us, to demand restitution from us, to shame us. Because we have served vengeful and vindictive gods, we fear that it will be the god-of-impossible-expectations who will finally appear.
We do well to follow the urging of this text to ‘acknowledge God’. We need daily to examine whom we serve. When we acknowledge the god-of -impossible-expectations, then we will surely fear his appearing. But if we acknowledge the God of the Bible whose coming is to nurture and give life, then we will await his coming like the dawn of a new day.
I acknowledge you, Lord.
You are not the god of impossible-expectations.
You are not the god-who-is-eager-to-punish.
I know what it is like when these other gods come, Lord.
They bring shame, blame and fear.
I do not acknowledge them, Lord.
I acknowledge you.
Come as the dawn of a new day, Lord.
Bring light into my dark days.
Come as gentle rain, Lord,
Cleanse, renew and nurture.
Come, Lord, as the dawn.
Come as the rains.
Water the parched earth of my soul.
Amen.
Copyright 1991 Dale and Juanita Ryan