Do I Understand My Pain?

In my previous writing, titled “God is Eager to Display His Work,” I used the story of Jesus healing the man born blind to explore the idea that the pain I often try to medicate with food and pornography could serve a greater purpose: to display God’s work as He heals me. And that healing may be closer than I think.

In this piece, I want to explore the possibility that I may not perceive my pain as clearly as the blind man understood his. The blind man knew exactly what his problem was—his blindness. Before Jesus came, he wasn’t wandering around upset that someone had neglected to turn the lights on. He understood the source of his pain.

In my case, much of my pain comes from past trauma, unwise decisions made by my children, challenges at work, and sometimes even the frustrations of home maintenance and loud noises. I often pray for God to help me forget my traumas, to guide my children to better choices, for work problems to be resolved quickly, for my house to hold together, and that my neighbor’s dogs will just - stop - barking! But I realize now that I’ve been praying wrong.

You see, I’ve been assuming that I simply am the way that I am - like how I believe loud noises will always bother me. But as I read about the healing of the blind man, it struck me: the problem isn’t the noise. The problem is how the noise affects me. And I could pray for healing from that.

Christ couldn’t have "turned the lights on" for the blind man if the man had seen his pain that way. In the same way, it might not be in God’s plan to change the hard things from my past, to fix my children, to make work easier, to hold my house together, or even to quiet my neighbor’s dogs.

As I reflected on the idea that I may not be seeing my pain accurately, I envisioned what life would look like if the real issues were fixed. Here’s what the vision entailed: A difficult memory surfaced, and I acknowledged it, let it go, and moved on. I was assigned a difficult work task with a deadline and got right to work on the interesting challenge. One of our three showers sprang a leak and I calmly turned off the water and added the repair to my to-do list. My child made a poor decision and I responded with love and guidance, without catastrophizing, forming an unhealthy attachment to the outcome, or taking it as a reflection on myself. An intentionally unmuffled car woke me up and I turned over and went back to sleep.

This sparked a new hope in me—that I could be changed. The world could stay as it is, but I could live in it without the negative effects it currently has on me. And why should it have that kind of power over me anyway? God may need me to work at it or even seek professional help, but I believe He is powerful and good enough to make that change in me.

In short, the real issue isn’t events themselves—it’s my negative reaction to them. What I need healing from is the hurt, not the causes of it.

This perspective can change how I pray. Instead of asking for events to change to suit me, I can now pray to be healed from my unhealthy reactions to these events.

I’m going to give it a try!

By Ty, Writing Team

It Starts With You (Me)

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by Pete, UU Writing Crew

A recurring theme with those whom I love of late is a conversation around brotherhood, sisterhood, connection, and support. 

October marks three years since my first Warrior Heart Bootcamp. I well remember getting a rush from finally seeing what true connection with God and others felt and looked like. 

A few months later I attended Advanced Bootcamp and came home again with the same feelings, including a renewed urgency and desire to have those same types of experiences more often and a lot closer to home. 

I was sitting in a pew at Church and praying to God, half complaining, “why don’t we have that type of connection in my local congregation?” I listed off the people to blame and bemoaned that a close friend who had been a ringleader for connection had just moved out of state.

In my contemplative state the thought came very strongly into my mind, almost like a voice: “you have been to two camps and know how it looks and feels. You are the person you have been waiting for.”

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Feelings of inadequacy, fear of rejection, a desire to keep the status quo all rushed over me and I felt overwhelmed. Again the powerful thought said to me, “just show people how much I love them and don’t worry about anything else. Just serve and love.”

It took a few false starts and a few more bootcamps to finally start having monthly Breakfast Burritos with Bros on a Saturday morning, as well as the occasional Crepes with Couples (the women were jealous and wanted to be invited too). 

I took opportunities when I was asked to teach our Men’s group and around the fire at young men’s camps to ask people what makes their hearts come alive and how their heart is doing today (asking “how are you doing” usually dead ends with “fine”). We began inviting families over for dinner and organizing movie nights and tried to always say yes when we were invited to something.  

It was uphill for many months, but then people started to soften. I took opportunities to go to lunch or breakfast with guys and get to know them. I would ask how I could battle for their hearts as I got to know them better. Admittedly, when things didn’t pick up as quickly as I thought they should, I still felt despair and wondered what the point was at times. But I have since seen the guys I’ve reached out to starting to reach out to others. It’s not at all about me but the love of Christ. It is independent of any one person’s efforts but it does need group participation to work. 

I am constantly reminded that Christ invites me in. Always ready to pull me up and into something better. Crazy adventures have occurred and I’m now actively walking and mountain biking. I’ve been rappelling and tried a lot of new things, including axe throwing and going to music concerts. 

“Adventure Awaits” is God’s slogan to me. I may wreck my bike, run into a cactus or a snake along the journey, but my heart and mind are alive, and I have been so blessed by waking up and doing something with others. 

If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. - Ghandi (Longer version of “Be the Change …”)

I challenge you to look for ways to love and to surrender the self. God has so much to give, and you are one of His tools for giving. People are dying on the vine all around us and are waiting—just as we are—for someone to get the ball rolling. 

After exhausting all of my excuses for it to NOT be me, I am living a life with a lot more connection, support, and love; and I’m working to let God be my navigator. I pray the same blessings for you! Get started somewhere and I promise the blessings will eventually come. 

Be a Victim or Be the Change

Just a couple of weeks ago I was caught in the latest round of layoffs at work. My emotions tend to take a few days to catch up to my situation, so I had about 48-hours of being detached and carefree before the hurt and anxiety really sank in.

Once the negative emotions took root, I noticed a part of me that would like to have played the victim. It really would be a very easy thing to do. I could just stew in resentment for my employer and perhaps even try to find a way to sue for wrongful termination. I could mope around the house, bemoaning my misfortune and accomplishing nothing. I could sabotage my job hunt, being surly and pessimistic in interviews and taking every rejection letter as a personal insult. Because I am, after all, a genuine victim of this misfortune. I am a victim, and my former boss is the perpetrator.

Of course, my former boss is also a victim of investors drying up, making it so that there wasn’t enough funding to keep everyone employed. And really, those investors are themselves victims of an uncertain economy. So sure, I’m a victim, but so is everybody else.

I don’t have to remain a victim, though. Rather than identify with that label of “unemployed,” I can do the work to change that label to “re-employed!” I have the excuse to wallow in self-pity, but also the power to make a change for the better. The choice is up to me.

I face the same choice whenever my wife and I have a fight. In those moments I could choose to play the victim, fixate on my wife’s flaws, treat her coldly, bring up old disagreements, lapse in my dailies, and cross bottom lines in my recovery. I could take on the label of “persecuted,” justifying all of my failings as a husband as being downstream of her failings as a wife.

Which would absolve me (at least in my own head) of any responsibility, but also strip me of the power to make a difference.

On the other hand, I could take accountability, humble myself enough to apologize for my flaws, regardless of whether she’s apologized for hers, and decide to do my dailies and stay sober, regardless of whether things are patched up between us or not. Once again I have a choice. I can choose to see myself as an agent of change, or as a victim, subject to the whims of others.

Of course, taking ownership for my own problems does not mean that I have to excuse the ill behaviors of others. I can acknowledge the hard hand that’s been dealt to me, while also having the determination to play it to the best of my ability.

As I’ve spent time talking to other people, I’ve seen that everyone is a victim in one way or another. There’s the child who was a victim of an angry mother, who was a victim of her runaway husband, who was a victim of his drunk father, who was a victim of the failing economy. Everyone’s a victim. Everyone has a reason to fixate on the person upstream who hurt them, deny any personal responsibility, and then hurt the next person further downstream.

Or, hopefully, somewhere along the line, someone will stop fixating on the person that hurt him, take full responsibility for his own situation, and spare the rest of the world his resentment. Hopefully…I can be that someone.

I admit, it isn’t easy for me to make that shift. Honestly, I don’t think I could do it without the group I attend regularly. I am very fortunate to have found a brotherhood who loves me enough to not validate me when I try to blame the world in a fit of self-pity. They love me enough to say, with kindness, “Yeah, that is really hard. I’m so sorry…. But what are you going to do to make it better?” They love me enough to believe that I can be more than a victim. They believe that I can be the change.

By Abe, Writing Team