Not too long ago, I was helping with a retreat and someone at the table was commenting about experiencing a cold shower that morning. It wasn’t presented as a major concern, but it was definitely something not desired by the individual. Another person at the table mentioned that he could offer up the cold shower. His reply was, “I don’t want to.” And I, quick with a witty and brisk response, jabbed, “You don’t have to offer it up. You can waste it.”
My own words have kept, for lack of a better word, haunting me over the weeks since that moment. Alongside it is the recurring question, Am I wasting it? Am I wasting my present suffering?
It is incredibly easy to look at someone else’s life and to see the moments when they should choose virtue. While it might take some learning and study, it is simple to offer words of wisdom, guidance for how one ought to live. Yet it is remarkably difficult to choose to accept one’s own wisdom or to live in the way one knows one should. The words which easily rolled out of my mouth have continued to stare back at me, probing me and provoking me, asking if they bear any resemblance to my own life.
I don’t want to waste my suffering.
Yet it seems that to offer up my suffering means I need to really be aware of it and consider it more deeply. If I’m going to offer it to the Lord, I need to recognize it. This, however, it not what I want to spend my time doing. Ignoring the present pain is a bit more comfortable. Instead of staring my longings and unfulfilled desires in the face, I want to avoid them and distract myself with something else. I think I tend to waste my suffering because I don’t want to keep acknowledging it and relating it to the Lord.
Underlying this avoidance of facing my suffering is perhaps the fear that if I keep looking at it, really seeing the tender point of pain and longing, then I might be prone to bitterness. It is already far too easy for my heart to grow bitter, with the Lord or anyone else. I think there is a worry woven into my heart that if I keep seeing this suffering and keep offering it back to the Lord that I will instead just tire of the process and get angry. If I avoid it, the slow-burn of annoyance will maybe just stay in the background. If I continually confront it, who knows what it will become?
And so I waste this precious suffering.
Worried I will be angry and bitter, I focus on other matters. I let the longings of my heart become background noise. Unable to have what I want, I trick myself into poor substitutes, imagining that this will be helpful. It isn’t working, I know, but it seems easier than the alternative.
In the process, I let innumerable moments of suffering slip past unnoticed. All of suffering is offered lovingly as a gift from a God who can bring great good from situations we’d rather forget. Ignoring or downplaying the suffering doesn’t make it go away, though. It is still there, pouring wastefully over the sides of my too shallow heart. I want to hope for some measure of earthly fulfillment and yet hope is a dangerous and radical thing. Instead, I tell myself I’m okay and that whatever may or may not happen is fine.
These days of Advent seem to slip through my fingers too quickly. The first few days usually start off slow and meditative before they start flipping past quite rapidly, like a video on fast-forward or a podcast on double-time. I love the anticipation and preparation of Advent. The wrapping of presents, the planning of special foods to make, the intentional spiritual reading, and the general build-up of merriment are all delightful. Yet when the anticipation isn’t just a liturgical season but years of one’s life, it can be wearing and harder to embrace. This, however, is the very place where suffering can be offered up. The present is the only place I can offer up suffering or receive grace or say Yes to whatever the Lord is seeking to do in my life.
And so I want to enter into hope more deeply during this time of Advent. Leaning in, I want to hopefully long for fulfillment, trusting that our good God wants us to be whole and entire. Like Our Lady, I want to ponder in my heart my hopes, dreams, sufferings, and deep desires. Instead of distracting myself or avoiding the situation, I desire to truly see what my life is and what I have to offer the Lord and then I want to offer it, just as it is. The Lord is faithful and He will provide all of the graces necessary for whatever He invites us into.
I don’t want to waste this suffering. I want to offer it back to the Lord so He can transform both it and my heart.
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Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Seeking After His Heart 