The Feels // How Do I Count My Hurt as Joy?
By Rebeca Metzler, Resonate Pullman
“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2). According to my Bible App, this was the verse of the day on April 11th, 2021. Last year around October, my husband, Kyle, and I decided we would start trying to get pregnant. It wasn’t very long after, the little blue stick read “pregnant”. You can imagine the immense joy we felt after finding out we would bring a child into this world. The joy only lasted a week. The day after Christmas I experienced a miscarriage. The doctor who saw me mentioned that 1 in 4 women will miscarry a child, it’s actually incredibly common, just not talked about very much. Though we were sad and hurting, we grieved our loss and knew we wanted to keep trying. For the next few months we eagerly waited for the stick to read “pregnant” once again and in April, it finally did. We were so sure that this pregnancy would be the one, at least that’s what we prayed for. On Sunday, April 11th, I started bleeding again. On Monday the doctors had told me I had lost this baby too. The loss hit differently this time around. After our first loss I was sad, but somehow comforted by the statistic the doctor had shared, but after the second time, I felt hurt by God. I was angry at Him for giving us this desire to be parents and not coming through for us. I was confused and started to question if there was something wrong with my body, but above all, I was scared. I felt terrified at the idea of trying one more time and losing it again.
Hurt is like a signal our bodies send as a response when we are in pain. If you are running and suddenly fall on your face, you will feel hurt in all the places you got hit. Emotionally, our bodies do the same thing. When you fall and get hurt, the sensible thing is to attend to your wounds before they get infected. Likewise, if you are hurting emotionally, the healthiest thing would be to care for your heart. However, emotional hurt is much easier to ignore or hide. At least it was for me. I lost my second baby on a Sunday, and for three days I pretended like nothing happened. I blamed it on being busy and even told my friends “I can’t process this right now, I need to work.” I mean how could I? Two miscarriages and it seemed like all God had to say was to “Count it all joy”. But when we hurt so deeply, how in the world do we count the hurt as joy? And how do we heal when we are hurting? I asked myself and the Lord these questions and as I sought Him in the midst of my hurting, He was faithful to answer.
In the gospel of Matthew, when Jesus was going to be crucified on our behalf he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” If Jesus knew he was going to rise from the dead, why would he tell God He had forsaken him? I believe Jesus is trying to set an example here. Jesus was being brutally tortured and he knew the wrath of God was upon him, and yet He chose to run to God in his hurt and tell Him how He felt. Jesus was lamenting. Lament is a grievous prayer directed to the Lord, that’s what God has taught me to do. We see David do this all over the Psalms and God even puts a whole book of the bible on lamenting.
My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, “ My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord”... But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. - Lamentations 3: 17-18, 21-23
Acknowledge your pain:
If you pay attention, the writer of the lament poem is not meek nor quiet about his emotions. “I am bereft of peace,” he says. The word bereft also means deprived or robbed of; something or someone robbed him of his peace and it leads him to say that his hope from the Lord has perished. The writer here is hurting so deeply, he is hopeless and depressed, remember he said he forgot what happiness even was? That’s some pretty strong language. Chip Dodd in his book, The Voice of the Heart says, “Hurt exposes our desire to find healing for our pain...the admission of hurt acts as the catalyst to relief and healing of emotional and spiritual pain.” That’s what the writer does. He recognizes his hurt, and that’s what I had to do too. I believe that without this first step, we can’t get to the rest. Like me, you might not want to at first. You might want to ignore your pain, but from my experience, you can only ignore it for so long before your emotional and spiritual wounds spread and get infected.
Take it to the Lord:
The writer is saying these things to God Himself, and what does God do? Returns his hope. Listen to what happens in verse 21, “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.” For three days after our second loss, I was in complete denial. I didn’t want to feel this hurt; I just didn’t want to feel anything. I avoided God and turned to netflix and work. Isn’t that what we often do? We are so afraid of feeling vulnerable and experiencing pain that we turn to coping mechanisms that numb us. The world tells us to eat ice cream when we are sad, to do a “self-care” night with a bubble bath and wine, to busy our lives with things of this world. Through these messages, society is subtly telling us not to grieve, and sometimes we don’t even see it because we actually think a “Self-care” night will heal us. I’m not saying a bubble bath with a good book is bad, but when we turn to things of this world for healing, even if they can be good, we will be left more hurt than before. While the world says “run, hide, it’ll be better that way”, God says “come to me, let’s expose your wounds so that I can properly heal them.” I had lost two children and all I wanted to do was watch netflix as if that would actually help. Let me tell you, it didn’t. Some of my sisters in Christ encouraged me to take time off work and take my feelings to Jesus. As I did, I cried endlessly telling God how unfair and cruel I thought this all was, but me turning to Him and being real about my pain initiated the healing process. That’s the choice we have, let our hurt fester or let the Lord heal us if we come to Him. Lament is an invitation to simultaneously feel our pain while being met with God’s sweet tenderness. Turning to Him is like receiving a warm embrace, that not only comforts, but has the power to heal. As I began to do this, I could feel God so near to me in my hurt, and just like in Lamentations, He was faithful to remind me of the hope I can have in Him.
Remember God’s promises:
After the writer takes his hurt to the Lord, God is faithful to remind Him of truth “but this I call to mind…..The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” He literally goes from having no hope (v.18) to “therefore I have hope” (v.21) because He is reminded of God’s character. This doesn't mean he no longer hurts, but now he has something to hold on to: God’s promises. The book of Lamentations was written after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Isrialites being forced into exile. Though God allowed this to happen, the writer knows that at the root of all brokenness is sin. Through our sin we have allowed death to reign the earth, literal life-ending-death, but also emotional and spiritual death. I lost my babies because sin and brokenness exist in the world. However, Jesus said “it is finished” when he died on my behalf, and three days later resurrected, defeating what defeats us all, death. The worst thing that could ever happen to us, no longer has power over us through the resurrection. Great is His faithfulness. So we count it all joy as we go through trials because God promises they will lead to steadfastness and hope if we turn to Him. (Romans 5:3-5) I am still hurt by the loss of my babies, but it hurts less and less as I turn to Jesus and am reminded that they are experiencing the fullness of joy in heaven because He died on their behalf. When we suffer, we can remember God promises that nothing can separate us from His love. (Romans 8)
Do it all over again:
After I had processed all of this, I thought I would never have to deal with it again, but I am starting to learn that healing is a continual process. Chipp Dodd says, “This experience of hurting, reaching and trusting nourishes your faith because it really makes you question whether or not God cares, and it exposes your hope that God will meet your needs.” If it was truly a one-and-done thing, then we wouldn’t need to go to God constantly. The process of acknowledging your pain, taking it to the Lord and being reminded of the truth, is one that invites us to watch as God pours out His grace to us time and time again. The beauty in lament is that it makes us turn to God and have our eyes fixed on His mercy and grace. When I first learned to lament, I ran to Jesus and was met with grace. The following week I did it again. Then the week after that. Each time God was there to love me and allow me to feel deeper intimacy with Him as He healed me. After all, the lament does say “his mercies never come to an end; they are new EVERY morning.”
