Hope beyond the overwhelm

Life in the overwhelm takes us from the relative comfort we may have had to fear to questioning the meaning of life to questioning our existence.  It is fathoms below, and infinitely harder than, any pain we’d previously conceived.

When we endure loss and we are tipped into grief, overwhelm threatens every moment.  Even when we’re gifted a presence of momentary peace, we know that the overwhelm, the dread, beckons at the door — we wonder when our peace will be vanquished.  That terrifying reality is an ever present threat.

‘FAITH TO OVERCOME’

Some people have faith to overcome and it comes naturally to them.  For others — especially those who are more realistic than idealistic — faith to overcome comes much less naturally.

Let me explain that ‘faith to overcome’ is not inherently about religious faith — where your faith might be in God, for instance.  For me, faith to overcome is much more visceral than religious faith, but it is also the basis of authentic religious faith. 

It’s a faith that trusts that good is coming. 

Faith to overcome is
born of and is underpinned
by a hope that insists good is coming. 

Faith to overcome is
impossible to stifle.
It holds the overwhelm amid the promise
of something good coming from it. 

This faith to overcome somehow helps in the pain of the overwhelm because it hopes for something better on the horizon.  Ultimately this faith to overcome cannot be defeated because the hope underpinning it refuses to be despaired.  Eventually, all good hopes are vindicated.  Good does come eventually.

Sure, there are times when we do despair: 

… times that are, “far beyond our ability to endure,
so that we despaired of life itself.”
— 2 Corinthians 1:8

But even in such places of spirit, there is the intractable presence of hope beyond the overwhelm if only we cling to the fact that good is coming.  And good WILL come. 

While we’re on this sojourn of pain in the overwhelm and dread, we can enrol in the truth that enduring this harsh season will pay handsome dividends when it is over.

Life experience is the school of hard knocks. 
Such wisdom is hard-won. 
Once won is cannot be lost.

If we talk about peace, we can see that once we’ve experienced this travail, the premium for peace is a bounty worth paying the service of our lives for.  And peace becomes our soul’s aim and hence wisdom is our driver. 

This is what life experience teaches us, through the pain of tumult: 

Peace is worth the struggle to attain it.
Peace is a goodness that indwells hope and joy.
Suffering teaches us that peace is THE prize of life.

Hope beyond the overwhelm is something that refuses to let go of the concept that good is coming.  It keeps hope alive, and it certainly can keep us alive. 

The concept of an horizon is crucial on the cruel path of life.  The horizon never arrives but if there is goodness there, it fuels hope and the faith to overcome. 

The insight and motivation in mental health

Like diligence and prudence are opposite and complementary sides of the coin of character, insight and motivation are opposite and complementary sides of mental health.  

A thumbnail sketch of this topic:

Diligence is like motivation – action-oriented.  

Prudence is like insight – inaction-oriented.  

Diligence and prudence form wisdom.  

Insight and motivation form mental health.

~

THE MENTAL HEALTH IN INSIGHT

Insight is that beautiful characteristic where a person can literally see inside themselves.  

They can truthfully see their individual and social truth.  

They are aware and their awareness adds beauty to all their relationships.  

They accept themselves for who they are, not needing to be perfect, on the contrary, never happier to be content with what they have and are.  

They pick up on the nonverbals and astoundingly do not need to be told where they are going wrong.  

They are also not overly afraid of receiving feedback.  

Their self-awareness is a great tool
that protects them and provides for them.

One of the worst blows of mental ill health is a loss or lack of insight.  

Those who cannot see what they need to see to protect themselves and others are in harm’s way.  

Those who struggle to know how to provide for themselves and others also lack insight.  

We’ve all had times when we’ve been vulnerable to these things.

What do we do to nurture insight?  We live in the knowledge of truth as much as possible.  That takes courage and humility.  The key question always remains: how open am I to the truths pertaining to my person and relationships — to my inner and outer world?

THE MENTAL HEALTH IN MOTIVATION

Society mistakenly thinks that depression is about sadness.  

Depression is about sadness, but it is so much more.  

Principally it’s about motivation – depression sucks not only the motivation and drive from a person, but it also sucks their hope, peace, and joy dry.  It saps us to the point where we’re rendered powerless to control ourselves.

But mental ill health is more than depression.  

A person who is demotivated is not at their peak mental health.  There is a disconnect with their purpose and an inability to live life full and abundantly.  

If mental ill health is a lack of life direction and purpose, it reaches its pit in suicidal ideation – the lack of will to live and the goal to die.  What sets a person back on their course is them connecting with their innate purpose – their reason and meaning for being here.  There is always a “why”.

The pinnacle of human existence is wanting to live and desiring to make the most of every day — accepting that not every day is imminently liveable.  

The best indicator that we have room to grow mentally is that we are NOT experiencing this.  

It is a very good thing when we commit to wanting to make more of every day we have alive – that’s a seeking for good mental health. 

If this article brings something up for you, listen to your inner voice and go on a quest to seek for better. 

The gifts of empathy and understanding

Truly understanding another human being is like seeing the entirety of an iceberg.  Much of the mass of an iceberg sits invisible below the surface of the icy waters.  The archetypal iceberg is much bigger in mass below the surface.  Only the smaller portion exists visible to the eye.

The metaphor of the iceberg is helpful for understanding empathy.  The more we see of the iceberg, the more we know its true mass, structure, and features.

The more we understand another person,
the more we can choose to empathise. 

When we more fully understand
and appreciate another human being,
we are positioned then to empathise.

But it also takes empathy to
achieve a fuller understanding.

Empathy is the capacity for one human being to understand and feel for another.  But empathy is also the behaviour of demonstrating care from the understanding gleaned.  Understanding comes first.

Understanding is the full iceberg.  It comes from the empathy of interest in the other person; the curiosity and integrity of interest for the right reasons.

THE HEART BEHIND EMPATHY

The heart is what underlies empathy — the WANT or the motivation to understand another person.  But many people have absolutely no inclination to do so. 

The heart in Old Testament terms is ‘the seat of the emotions’ — the heart is the basis of all our motivation or want to do anything.  This is a thing that we must personally see the inherent benefit of — to do it. 

The heart behind empathy is the WANT
or desire to see others prosper or be blessed.  

Only people who already feel blessed
have the capacity to willingly empathise. 

Only when we truly understand the power of giving our love away to the extent of empathy, do we fully grasp and take hold of the abundant life any of us can have at any time. 

Giving empathy is therefore a key indicator and evidence of full emotional health in a person in the realm of relationships.  It is not only wisdom to engage in it.  Demonstrated empathy is a gift to both the receiver and giver.

COMMITTING TO A FULLER UNDERSTANDING 

Making the sacrifices necessary to fully understand another person is worth it.  But it’s like the chicken and the egg — what comes first?  Empathy or understanding?  

To fully invest ourselves in understanding another, we must have sufficient security of worth within ourselves first.  Who gives the precious gift of authentic empathy without first having a safe sense of self? 

Seeking a full understanding of
another involves an inherent humility;
a heart genuinely interested in the other. 

A fuller understanding of another person positions that person to empathise.

Blessed is the heart of a person motivated to empathise.

A person motivated to understand and
empathise is blessed as they are a blessing. 

Let it go, experience freedom

More than a few times in any given day, and myriad times over a lifetime, we find ourselves drawn into concerns that are beyond our control.  Succumbing to anxiety is the lot of the human life.  But the situation is not hopeless.

Even the experience of feeling crushed
can bring the gift of perspective.  

Nobody wants to be crushed with grief,
but suffering sorts some anxieties from others. 

The chief blessing I experienced in the tyranny of languishing, lasting grief twenty years ago was the entrapment of gratitude that I had for the things that could never be taken away from me.

Over these for which I had command there was real freedom.  The list seemed endless when I dug deeper down.

Spiritual blessings.  I was alive.  I had the love of my kids, my parents, new friends that came into my orbit.  Fire breathed into my faith, for God had captivated my heart in the dread of loss.  A newfound discovery, the love of service.  The power in overcoming addiction to alcohol.  None of these were little things.  

The more I surrendered
the material things I could lay hold of,
the more spiritual blessings
flooded into my perception.  

All of what I was experiencing — yes, the joy — came amid much sorrow and fear for the calamity that my life had become overnight.  I had lost my wife, my home, free access to my children, all joy in a job that required me to travel but alas a career that demanded I be away from my kids.  I had to let go of that life and centralise my efforts and focus.  Then freedom rushed in.

Materially, I had lost incalculably.  Every one of these single losses in and of themselves was enough to floor me.  Even as they piled on top of one another, I was forced to look for higher ground.

That season felt like I had lost everything
that meant anything to me,
but of course there was much
that was only then beginning to come in.

That season I learned what I had control over — what I thought, said and did.  

That’s it.  That’s all.  

Everything else I was forced to let go of, and in that season the gift of letting go was granted to me.  (I’ve had many seasons since where letting go seemed the hardest thing to do.)

Ultimately, we let go for freedom, but letting go must be done in faith, for it never feels like the right thing to do.  

But as we let go, we receive something intangible that we could never have otherwise.

Letting go redeems the reward that the
truer possessions cannot be taken from us.

The truer possessions cannot be taken from us
because they are not of this world.

Loss is the invitation to the spiritual.

Empathy, compassion beyond judgement

Many people struggle to understand how or why people do certain things.  Beside the intention of evil residing in some that would do the unthinkable, nobody is beyond making a significant error of judgement.  Nobody is beyond temptation.  Nobody is protected from the folly of human weakness.

Empathy for those who have made a mistake should not be hard.  It’s a kindness that may not make their situation better, but at least cruelty isn’t an added burden.

Empathy is a gift to both the one
receiving it and to the giver. 

Nobody likes to suffer, but there are lessons in it.  There are none more so apt here than what happens in a person who suffers for having made their own mistake.  To be kept in that place of suffering for the shame of having made a significant error of judgement seems cruel when we are there.  But it teaches us something far deeper than we can learn any other way.  It teaches us a vital lesson.  

We learn empathy deeply
through our own need of it.

There is a love of kindness and compassion that should rule all our hearts, but many have not yet learned such an empathy that exemplifies understanding. 

When we experience the deeper compassion of empathy when we feel we ought to be judged, it may be that the person who empathises has suffered and been taught deeply a love that is beyond judgement.

Judgement can be a sign
of a lack of understanding.

We must always ask ourselves when we are judging another person, “Have I never made an error worthy of judgement?”  Or, “Is there any chance I could make an error of judgement in the future?”  “Would I appreciate being judged?”  And, “What would I prefer to experience from others, empathy or judgement?”  

Empathy does not save a person from the consequences of their actions, but it does convey to a person that they are more valuable than what they do.  

The truth is we are all more valuable
than what we do or what we have.

Judgement is an error in itself. 
It reveals a lack of empathy. 

Those lonely nights lost to God saved me

In a season God found me, 

I felt incredibly lost to God. 

What seems a contradiction is actually a fact for so many I have had the privilege of journeying with.  As a pastor and counsellor, I’ve heard many recount exactly the same story.

What follows is an account of how God was found even in the plot of feeling utterly lost to God; 

… like God was completely silent.

I recall it like yesterday, whether in my dingy flat or in the slightly more well-appointed townhouse I subsequently moved into.  

Myriad experiences of feeling utterly alone,
zero Presence of the Lord with me. 

Yet in that dusky time, even as I questioned the very existence of God as far as I was concerned, there was something in me that could not let go.  Part of me had to believe in faith.

The more God seemed absent,

the more I sought His Presence.

Of course, what I describe here is much like the dark night of the soul, as St John of the Cross put it.

There was about this time a kind of non-living experience that forced me into the ethereal. 

Even as God’s Presence was void in my life on many such occasions, lonely nights where there was just me and my tears, there, in fact, in those moments, was the Presence of God.

I just could not see it at the time, and because I could not bear the idea that God was not present, I imagined He WAS present, praying as if He was, even though I could not feel His Presence. 

You may be forgiven for needing to reread this a few times.  It may make no sense to you.  But it makes all the sense in the world to me.

In those times when my soul was vanquished, and my spirit was tested beyond its apparent pathetic strength — because when it was tested, I really had nothing of my own — even as I had nothing left, God proved His Presence with me, even as He was absent to me. 

You may need to be in that position to understand what I’m saying.  And I trust that if you ever are in such a position you don’t run from being completely lost.  Refuse to let go of the hope that God is WITH you.

I found I needed to be completely lost

before I would truly need God to save me.

Amid the moment of our personal Gethsemane, we’re blessed in being reminded of this: just when the Father seemed to turn His face from Jesus, we cannot reconcile that reality without contrasting with it the reality of the resurrection. 

That’s right, we cannot contemplate the truth of Gethsemane and the Cross without also contemplating the Resurrection just a few days later.

Likewise, when God seems to turn His face from us, as He did with Jesus, He still has us (we just don’t know it at the time), and His pervasive resurrection plan is in full roll-out mode.

In these moments of absence,

the bridge of faith is absolutely vital.

No life comes without faith.

How do we hold on in times of God’s absence?

We hold onto a faith that says He is present.

We ignore every screaming distraction pushing us away from our pain, and we enter the journey of being in the lostness, for that is where God will surely meet us. 

We should not expect this 

will be a lovely experience. 

It’s the worst experience of our lives — levels deeper than we could ever previously conceive or imagine.

But that is where the true God meets us;

in the hell of our private Gethsemane.

But we don’t feel met at all. We just feel lonely and abandoned. That’s the paradox in being truly saved. We need to feel truly lost first.

God saves the desperate soul 

who is so lost only He can help them.

This is an article for you to save for when war breaks out — the war against the soul whose life has departed into the ether.  When your life as it was is lost.  As it was when it ceases to be.

You will know it when you land there. 

A living hell descends in grief outbound of loss.

Nothing will make sense. And nobody will seem to understand, but, praise God, some will try.  Humour them.  Trust them.  God will use them.  There is a ministry of God in the space where human help is benign. 

Trust those who have such humility 

to feel hopeless and helpless WITH you.

Yes, when you’re in these lost places,

it’s only those who cannot help you who do help you!