When We Worship Our Pain

The snow crunched under my shoes as I quickly made my way across campus. I was trying not to be late for the office session with the professor I was a TA for.

That morning, I’d woken up feeling as if something was slowly suffocating me, and I couldn’t shake it all day. With each step I took, I could feel my heart racing, feel my breaths get shorter and shallower.

Then the mental hurricane of pain and lies and loss began.

I made it inside to the women’s restroom. My legs gave out as I closed the stall door. Wave after crushing wave pummeled me as I cried uncontrollably, hyperventilating and shaking.

Several different women asked if I was okay. I have no idea if or how I answered them.

Eventually the storm passed, and somehow I made it down the hall to my professor’s office. I was in a haze, completely wrecked, depleted. Hopeless.

I was over an hour late.

*

In 2 Samuel 12, the prophet Nathan confronts King David after David commits the biggest moral and spiritual tragedy of his life. Indeed, the ramifications and consequences of what he did ultimately tore his family—and the nation—apart.

In the wake of his conversation with Nathan, David pens Psalm 51. It’s a hard, brutally honest, remarkable Psalm to read. In it, David owns his sins before God. He stares his darkness in the face, owns it, and pleads to God for mercy, for a clean heart. And then he writes this beautiful verse near the end:

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
            A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.”

What floors me here is that the Hebrew word for “contrite” literally means “crushed.”

David felt his spirit break under the crushing weight of sin. Of pain. Of darkness. And instead of hiding from God, instead of trying to cover or deny his brokenness, he surrenders it to God as the only meaningful act of worship he’s capable of.

*

We were created to worship. And where our eyes linger longest is usually what we end up meditating on—what we end up revering, adoring, standing in awe of.

But all too often, we end up adoring the wrong things. Because we make idols out of anything and everything that fills our vision more than Christ. And for a lot of us, that’s our pain. Our hardship. A diagnosis. Financial insecurity. Betrayal. Heartache. Unrealized dreams. Overwhelming grief and loss. Sin.

Instead of facing these things, surrendering them and letting the Lord heal us, they take on a great and terrible beauty we stand in horrified awe of. We meditate on them, let them sink into our souls, let them rule our hearts. We let them dictate our actions and decisions.

We become more impressed with our hurt than the Healer.

*

Depression, anxiety, and panic attacks have been a part of my life for at least 20 years. In healthier seasons, I could maybe go a few months without having any major depressive episodes. But in the harder seasons, when the darkness started to fill my vision, panic attacks were a monthly/weekly/daily occurrence. In the worst stretch last winter, they were a several-times-a-day thing. And I always felt ambushed by them, fearing the storm and lies and pain they brought on.

But the last panic attack I had was seven months ago—that’s the longest stretch I can remember. And this time, it was different. I could feel it coming. I was ready for it.

I sat against the kitchen sink cabinet, took a deep breath, and let it come. As my body froze, my mind and heart began to race. And this time, I didn’t fight the pain or fear as it crashed over me. I didn’t fight the flood of involuntary tears.

But I did fight, with every mental fiber I could muster, to anchor myself to Hope. With my brain in a racing, fight-or-flight state, memory recall was gone. Rational thought was nearly impossible. And so I gave thanks for everything I could see from my vantage point on the kitchen floor. I thanked Him for Henry, throwing his not-quite-two-year-old chubby arms around my neck. For the dishtowels my mom had given us for Christmas. For the solid surface against my back. For the soft mat and wood floor under me. For pictures of family on the fridge.

I thanked God for all he’d done. For the house he miraculously helped us get. For the beauty of the snow outside. For the warm fire in the woodstove. For the way these things testified, even in this darkness, to His provision and protection.

I wasn’t trying to ignore what was going on; I was trying to put it in perspective. In light of all I had, in light of all He’d done, in light of eternity, this attack was not the earth-shattering event it felt like.

After a few minutes, it subsided. It was the shortest I’d ever had. And I wasn’t a complete wreck afterward. Exhausted, yes. But not wrecked.

Instead of fighting the pain, I leaned into it; I surrendered it. I breathed deep and named Truth.

I offered all of me, broken and crushed as I was, as a sacrifice of praise to the One who held me even there.

*

Our purest praise can come from the place of our deepest suffering.

It’s when we choose to say, “But you are God, and your will be done, your Kingdom come” after we’ve railed against Him again, after we’ve pled for the cup to pass us, after we acknowledge we are in the pit and it seriously sucks.

It’s when we choose to say that He is good no matter what happens. When we choose to see His beauty beyond the muck of our circumstances. When we acknowledge there is something bigger and more True than what we feel right now.

It’s when your pain meets your surrender. Because that’s where the Spirit is at work inside you.

And it’s not an instant cure-all.

My external circumstances didn’t miraculously change. My problems didn’t magically disappear. I still had to walk the painful road of healing.

But. My internal reality changed.

In the midst of panic attacks, I had Peace. In the middle of sorting through the mess of abuse, I had Comfort. When I met the end of myself time and again caring for two boys with special needs, I found Strength and Patience and Grace.

Because true worship connects us to the Vine, fills us with Living Water.

*

Worship is our way through tragedy, through hardship, through fear and anxiety and uncertainty.

But in these desert places, worship looks much different than singing once a week at church.

It looks like simple, raw, vulnerable prayers and praise said over and over again until Truth starts to be more real than the lies.

Sometimes it’s loosening your grip on the broken pieces of your spirit, laying them at His feet, believing He will make you new again.

It can be turning on worship music, letting other voices sing words you can’t, and choosing to rest in His Peace even when the storm is raging its way through you.

It’s clinging to His Hope and promises when everything in your world would tell you to let go, to despair.

It’s a hand thrust defiantly above the waves that threaten to consume you.

It’s breathing deep and naming Truth. It’s leaning into the pain, surrendering it.

It’s offering all of ourselves, broken and crushed as we are, as a sacrifice of praise to the One who holds us even here.

This is how we grieve with Hope.

This is how we worship in the dark.

***