pain – Sheila Dougal

A declaration: I will lament and love

I have an aversion to clean slates and starting over. Those things have their appeal and their place as well, but as a practice or rhythm for life they don’t work very well. Especially where humans are involved.

Rachel Joy Welcher wrote, in her poem, Tangled, “When will you realize, oh my soul… That is is not within your power/to untangle joy from pain?”

There are no real clean-slates in relationships. Where we’ve wounded one another, we cannot simple wipe the person and the wounds they’ve caused from our lives and move on as though those pains, those people, never existed. Even where we must end the relationship, the wounds that heal leave scars.

This week I read a poem this line from a poem by George Herbert that stopped me.

I will lament, and love
from The Temple (1633), by George Herbert

I am having a hard time putting words to what that quote from George Herbert stirred in me. Maybe it’s because it tugged at my soul like the question in Welcher’s poem. Maybe it’s because though I realize I have to take the joy with the pain, I still crave things not being so tangled up.

Sometimes I think I get stuck because I see both the black and the white of it. And there is a lot of grey. A lot. I can’t clear-cut the wrongs from my husband or sons’ lives like they do in the Douglas Fir forested hills of southwest Oregon. Heck, I can’t parse out my own wrongs from my life without digging myself into a deeper hole. But although the lament comes with the love, the joy with the pain, there are some clear lines to be drawn and clear ends to relationships that need to take place. There is a time, as Mary Oliver put it, for a clear and announced, “Yes! No!” There are boundaries we should not move or remove. But here in the already-not yet, our walls are overgrown with thorny Bougainvillea. Our relationships are a bittersweet drink of joy and pain.

As a Christian, I see my life, and all of life, more and more as a garden to be planted right where I am. With the dangers and delight that are sure to come. Rather than a slate or a white board to be wiped clean. There will be weeds and thorns even after I clear a patch of heart. There will be droughts I have not control over and floods that will drown what I’m trying to grow. There will be lessons to be learned about climate and shade and the need for light, especially on the things that want to hide in the dark.

I will plant myself right here with these people and thank God he hasn’t left me. He’ll tend to my heart. And I will lament and love.

What do you do when it all seems to be for nothing?

Fear can strangle you. Lies can put you in real danger. Truth can be a hurricane sweeping through and flattening everything you’ve worked to build. And you can be so overcome with the shadow of death that you stop bagging your tomatoes in the produce section and grind your teeth angry, determined to cut off whoever you must to get back some good, normal, happy life.

And what’s the point anyway?

Why the long days of bending low and praying hard and training the vine to grow the right way, if it’s all gonna just get ripped up at the roots and tossed in the gutter? What are we trying to love these people in our four walls for anyway? Is it a waste?

If the ones we love take our arms-open-wide efforts to be patient and kind, to point them to the truth and hold up life-giving boundaries and look us right in the eye and stab us right in the heart without a blink, was it all for nothing?

Maybe the old saying is true- If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em! But how do you join in destroying the good? How could that possibly be an alternative?

There are no sentences to write in response to these lamenting questions. Just silence. Just sitting with Job in the ashes and pain in silence. Just waiting. Just three dark days of waiting for the stone to be rolled away.

I am the man who has seen affliction
under the rod of God’s wrath.
He has driven me away and forced me to walk
in darkness instead of light.
Yes, he repeatedly turns his hand
against me all day long...
Yet I call this to mind,
and therefore I have hope:


Because of the Lord’s faithful love
we do not perish,
for his mercies never end.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness!
I say, “The Lord is my portion,
therefore I will put my hope in him.”


The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the person who seeks him.
It is good to wait quietly
for salvation from the Lord.
It is good for a man to bear the yoke
while he is still young.

Let him sit alone and be silent,
for God has disciplined him.
Let him put his mouth in the dust—
perhaps there is still hope.
Let him offer his cheek
to the one who would strike him;
let him be filled with disgrace.


For the Lord
will not reject us forever.
Even if he causes suffering,
he will show compassion
according to the abundance of his faithful love.
For he does not enjoy bringing affliction
or suffering on mankind.
- Lamentations 3:1-3, 21-33

“…and he will be mocked, insulted, spit on; and after they flog him, they will kill him, and he will rise on the third day.”
Jesus from Luke 18:32 CSB

Suffocate Death

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Lord, it’s too much
Too much evil
Too much death
Too much weight
Weight my chest can’t bear

I know you say, “Bring it here”
But when I try
I can’t lift it
I can’t speak it
It can’t stay this way

I don’t know how to
Open my mouth and say
All the pain we’re bearing
All the loss
Loss of heart

We’re tired, Lord
I know, my strength is small
Where can I go?
Out here?
Here in my backyard?

The air is still hot out here
Still hot from the fire in the sky
Still thick and heavy
Like a weighted blanket, smothering
Smothering me and my friends

I can’t…
Oh God don’t let us go crazy
Don’t let death win
Don’t let our love grow cold
Cold and hard and numb

It feels like death is winning
It feels like evil’s foot is pressing
Power is crushing
our necks and we can’t…
Can’t breathe

Where are you?
Are you here?
Are you a bystander?
Are you here on the ground?
Ground down fine like dust?

You are with us?
Us dust
Will you raise us up?
Up with you to heaven?
Heaven here, your kingdom

Rise up, Lord!
Raise us up!
Crush evil’s head!
Suffocate death!

Learning to breath like a Christian during a pandemic

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Honestly I’m angry. It’s 10 pm and I just made myself shut off my phone.

What I read on Twitter tonight has me writhing in anger! I see people loosing their grip on their wealth and spinning the elderly and vulnerable as worthy martyrs on behalf of the American dream.

It makes me want to puke! Puking probably won’t help anything. But learning how to breathe like a Christian during this pandemic will.

Just today I was thinking about the tension between being joyful as a Christian and lamenting. Right now I mostly want to lament. I want to be angry at the injustice and evil I see. I want to weep over the anxieties I feel. But I also feel a sense of hope, anticipation and actual joy about the redemption Jesus is working through this dark time in history.

After scrolling through tweets tonight, finding myself scowling and scrunching my shoulders, holding my breath and slamming utensils in anger, I realized I needed to stop and breathe and cast my cares on the God who defends the widow and fatherless and redeems my life.

There’s a healthy pattern in the Psalms for a practice of living with the tension between joy and sorrow, anger and hope.

The Psalms are like breathing. Breathing like a sojourner in a foreign land. Breathing like a child of God.

We exhale, “How long?” And, “Why have you forgotten?” And, “Contend, O Lord!” and we cry.

He gathers our tears and bears us up continually (Psalm 68:19).

Then we inhale, “Trust in the Lord!” And, “You are my help and my deliverer!” Breathing in the hope of his promise.

He leads us on, in that “long obedience in the same direction” (Peterson), through the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23), all the way home.

There is much to lament. And there is also much good to anticipate. Our Redeemer lives! And while I weep and I cannot tritely say, “Look at how happy I am because I’m a Christian, even while the world burns.” I can, weathered and worn, laugh at the days to come.

I can breathe out my complaints to the One who takes vengeance, and I can inhale his unspeakable peace.

An argument for the costly care of the least of these

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If
wrinkled Boomers
with diabetes and heart disease
amputations and hemiparesis
are random collisions of worn out atoms
draining our society of valuable resources…

If
the cost of rehabilitating the Grey Tsunami,
aphasic from stroke,
requiring a hoyer lift
to move their paralyzed frames
from bed to a rolling shower chair
so nurses’ aides can wash silver strands
and run, warm soapy water under breasts
and cleanse away the urine and waste they cannot control
is debilitating our healthcare system…

Why
nurse them with care and aide?
Why not kiss them on the cheek
and hand them over to death
and use the thirty or more pieces of silver to give to the poor
and make our lives a little easier?
Because…

Imago Dei
In every crooked grin
In every slobbered chin
On the face of every one of us
Who sin
And live
And don’t quite die
But slowly break down
In a body of death
Still coursing with blood
And disease

We’re holy
Bone and flesh
Breasts and chest
Bowel and bladder
Tongue and breath

Jesus
in the least of these
who have yet to peak beyond the womb,
whose contracted legs
curl up in an aged, fetal form

We
tremble and shudder
We’re traumatized
We give dignity
and pour expensive resources
on the broken body
because…

Imago Dei

5 helps for hard, I mean, all marriages

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In September my husband and I will have been married for 25 years. And that’s no testimony to our skill, secrets or practices. We’ve done just about everything wrong. And making it this long is no guarantee that we’ll make it another 25 years. When our friends ask how we’er doing, I tell them our marriage is healthier than it’s ever been. Nevertheless, the past tries to swallow me in a mire. And my previous attempts at holding tightly to our vows- as though they are the grace that saves me- have proven my idolatry.

Listening to Rachel Welcher yesterday on a Grace Covers Me podcast by Christine Hoover I heard a few things that struck a chord with me. Rachel is a woman who has at least in part walked a mile in my shoes. In listening to her story I echoed amens and scratched down a bunch of thoughts. Here’s five I thought were beneficial for all marriages:

Just because you’ve done everything right, doesn’t mean everything will turn out right. Describing how she met her now ex-husband, Rachel, she talks about how she tried to do everything, “by the books.” She did what she was taught was wise and godly in dating and picking the right person to marry. Yet her marriage still ended in a divorce she didn’t want. She brings up a great point: There’s a prosperity gospel theology undergirding the idea that if we do all the right things our marriages will turn out great. It’s not true. You can do all the right things and God’s will for you can be suffering and even divorce. Like Rachel, I too wrestle with how it works theologically that God can hate divorce and it still be somehow part of his sovereign will that you walk through a divorce. I may not understand but it’s true. The fact that we will suffer and experience blessing even in walking through things God hates does not mean we shouldn’t make wise decisions in dating and marriage. Our motivation is not freedom from suffering. Our motivation is love of God. We obey because we love God, not so that God will bless us. For the Christian the blessing in suffering in a hard marriage or even in loosing your marriage is that God is near to you.
Living with the looming possibility that your spouse might decide that the two of you are just too different now. Rachel talked about the torture of living in this limbo state where you know your spouse is considering a divorce. It’s interesting to me that we who have experienced this uneasy limbo in our marriages attribute our lack of control of the destiny of our marriages to our hard marriage situations. God has taught (is teaching) me over the years that no marriage is a guarantee. The truth is even the best and healthiest of marriages could be completely destroyed by one or the other’s decision at any time. Living in a marriage with an unbeliever these 25 year has taught me to live with open hands to God’s will. 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 gives specific help for believers married to unbelievers who want to leave the marriage, but the message in that chapter is also for all marriages: Let go of clinging to the shadow of marriage (vs. 29-31). Rachel’s description of the torn feeling of whether to focus on being a wife or, “… prepare for inconceivable heartache,” is a reality for people in hard marriages. But it’s also a reality for any marriage. Rachel’s friend’s advice,”You won’t ever regret loving him too much during this time,” is good for every marriage. As Rachel said, “While you’re married, your heart’s in your marriage.”
It’s not your responsibility to convince or save your spouse. 1 Peter 3 has been a go-to passage for me these 25 years of marriage. As I wrote in my piece at Desiring God, my desire to win my husband to Christ with my Christ-changed life is something, by God’s grace I will try to do until I die- whether we’re married or not. But Rachel talked about how the message some people delivered her way was that if she did the right things she might be able to save her husband. I know what she means. Over the years I’ve heard the same message. Maybe you should invite him to such and such. Maybe he should read this book. Maybe he should go to that movie. Have you taken him to that church? Would he go out to poker night with me? I’ve tried everything to “win” my husband in my own power. But Peter’s call to seek to win your husband is a call to be a light not a call to be your husband’s savior. I know the pressure Rachel speaks of, but I think the message of 1 Peter 3 is that even if we loose our spouses to divorce, while we are married, we should give our hearts to loving God and loving our husbands in such a way that desires to win them to Christ.
Living with shame in your marriage. Rachel talks about how her divorce was her identity for a season after she lost her marriage. I feel like I’ve wrestled with that recurring climate in my marriage for 25 years. When you’re in a hard marriage that’s been hurt by each other’s sin, divorce, differences of faith, etc., the pain can be so overwhelming that it’s the key landmark by which you identify your life. But the shame of brokenness in our marriages and in our lives is not what Christ wants to leave us with. We can take our shame to him and learn to live out of the identity of who we are in Christ. The brokenness in your marriage doesn’t define you. Christ does. I have to feed myself that truth daily, several times a day, in season and out of season.
You must be fueling your own relationship with God. Rachel mentions having been in the midst of privately writing essays on Job for two years when her husband filed for divorce. She was able to draw on what she knew of God during that terrible time because of her time in the scripture. Whether our marriages are broken by divorce, differences of faith, past sins and failures, or just the everyday sins and failures that make lifetime companionship with another person hard, we, like Rachel, can be steadied through the various seasons of our life knowing God can allow us to suffer and be good at the same time. But to know this kind of steadfast love we must feed our relationship with God by being in his word. Meditating on it day and night. Wrestling with it. Praying it. Daily.