Have you ever seen someone rage with anger after being shown that their suffering could have been avoided?
When we have suffered for years over a problem that had a real solution, we can get so angry when that solution is later brought to our awareness.
A Mom
I had to unfollow one woman on social media I had known for years because she was raging against anyone and everyone who suggested that childhood vaccines can cause serious health problems for children. She had two children and they both had severe developmental disorders.
She was sharing posts all the time talking up the lifestyle of living with a precious child with X disorder. She even posted memes about how it’s not a disorder but just a unique trait.
I couldn’t keep following her because her rage against contradicting medical information was so harsh. There was name calling and insults and arrogance. It was too much to bear.
At the time, I pondered why she became so furious with even the suggestion that this condition could have been avoided.
Some years passed, and I checked back in on her. She’d made a 180° turn in her approach. To my surprise, she was advocating for the exposure of corporate medical malpractice and promoting more natural, unprocessed foods and lifestyle. Good on her.
A Dad
In another instance, I saw a dad begin to post constantly about how autism is a blessing. I’ve heard the testimony of many parents with severely autistic children who will vouch that it is not a blessing at all as they change their adult child’s diapers or get scratched or bitten on a regular basis.
That dad would post harsh criticisms of people who mentioned environmental causes for medical conditions, referring to it as hate speech.
I’m not here to push an opinion on autism or any other condition. Truly. I pray blessings on every child and parent facing these challenges. This post isn’t pushing any agenda beyond addressing the condition of our hearts.
An Elderly Woman
A woman in her 60s had been popping sleeping pills and Tylenol/Advil almost daily for the better part of two decades. She had chronic back pain and blood sugar issues and she never felt “good”.
When her grandchildren would visit, she’d watch as her husband interacted. She rarely would. She’d talk about them all the time, but rarely engage with them. She was in so much pain she didn’t feel capable.
She’d tried Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig and who knows what else along the way. But at some point, she just quit trying. This was her new identity and it shaped every interaction with every person for the rest of her life.
There’s no way to calculate the amount of memories missed. She was given information from a few close friends and family members that would have saved her life from countless hours of debilitating chronic pain, but she wasn’t willing to put in the effort. And she was offended by the suggestion of a path forward.
Why do some people have such a visceral reaction to factual information? Why would anyone EVER be angry with facts that shed light and clarity?
Let’s follow the lifecycle of suffering
In the short term, we get a bad diagnosis or suffer from a chronic condition. Full of completely unfounded and naive hope, we rush to the internet to research, looking for evidence that someone somewhere has found a solution to our problem. One person shares their experience, and we try what they did. No luck. Someone else shares a story of dramatic improvement, so we invest time and money in the procedure they had. Still no results.
This may go on for months. Even years. We research and experiment, hoping this next approach will be the magic key that unlocks the door to healing and freedom.
Everyone has a line somewhere.
Without knowing it, each person has a line that marks the point of surrender. It’s an invisible line that marks a moment in time at which point the person will no longer is willing to try to overcome their unfortunate situation. Depression has been creeping up for a while now. Hope has basically dried up and the effort has been on autopilot.
And then, we quit. Call it the fifth stage of grief: Acceptance.
We reach a point where the time and energy and money and hope has run out, or we’re simply not willing to invest any more. It’s cost us too much to hope. It’s wasted too much of our time. If we haven’t found a solution by now, it simply doesn’t exist.
So we accept it. And we adapt.
What does acceptance look like?
If we’ve burned our candle at both ends for ANY amount of time, acceptance looks first like rest. We give ourselves permission to stop fighting against gravity.
We let ourselves “just be”. We find ourselves saying things like, “This is just who I am now.”
Once that point is reached, the approach shifts to acceptance and a reconfiguration of our identity as a person. We “were” a person with potential, opportunities, and a full life ahead of us to live. There were no boundaries in our future, only possibilities.
Now those possibilities have shrunk from endless to extremely limited. The money is gone. The health is gone. Our child needs constant assistance. Whatever the case may be, we take on a new persona as a person who lives with X.
Self-Fulfilling prophecy changes everything
When we identify as a person with X problem, we stop trying to overcome it. We stop trying to be better than it. We stop looking for opportunities. Guess what that means? We NEVER see opportunities. Our belief that things now cannot change means we are no longer open to notice the opportunity for change, so we never act on the opportunity, so change never happens. Over time, we become what we said we now are.
There are risks not taken, friendships not forged, milestones not savored. Those choices of viewpoint literally affect the storyline of our lives.
Give that repeated mindset enough time and not only do we become entrenched in accepting our suffering as our identity, but we also resist anyone telling us that we COULD have lived a better, whole, healed, fruitful life.
After accepting pain for a long enough time, we don’t want to hear that there actually was a better way. That our child didn’t have to suffer. That we didn’t have to suffer so much for so long. That we didn’t have to miss out on so many experiences.
We can feel so much fury at the injustice of needless suffering that we deny the truth of the solution presented to us. That lie would allow us to continue as we are with less guilt. Less shame.
The road less traveled
But . . .
The courageous path… the more difficult path… is to be teachable, humble, correctable, and ready to grow.
To be willing to step up to higher levels of responsibility and all the costs that come with it.
To discard an identity that was never designed for us, and which has held us bound.
By the grace of God, may we stand and face the light of truth and accept the pain that offers the possibility of the most profound change
