Our faith in God can crumble during times of tragic pain and illness.
It’s not just the physical pain that devastates us, it’s the feeling of being dismissed by the God who is supposed to care and protect us.
The Bible verses we’ve memorized, creeds we’ve believed, and catechisms we’ve recited don’t seem to make much sense during these darkest hours. Sadly, the Bible passages promising comfort, peace and healing can just incite more spiritual pain, disbelief and grief.
It’s still difficult for me to recite the Lord’s Prayer because the phrase “thy will be done” unsettles me. It’s easy to say those words when life is easy, but when life becomes tragic and painful, that phrase causes me to repel God. The Lord’s Prayer leads me silence as I’m still trying to process my theology along with the trauma.
During these dark seasons, the only scriptures that resonate with me are the cries of lament, especially the Psalmists who display their anger at God and wonder why they feel deserted by their covenantal God.
It’s no wonder many of us may leave our faith and/or need to adjust our theology to help us make sense of the pain and/or trauma happening to us or others.
One of the most helpful ways for me to deal with trauma and pain is working with a therapist and listening to others share their experiences of pain — and how their faith in God helped them in the process.
That’s why it was an honor to listen to Liuan Huska share her journey of managing pain, chronic illness and finding wholeness, which is the subject of her latest book “Hurting Yet Whole: Reconciling Body & Spirit In Chronic Pain & Illness” from InterVarsity Press.
Liuan Huska went through years of chronic pain and wondered why God seemed absent and questioned some of the common assumptions about healing. What do we do when our bodies don’t work the way they should? How do we find faith amid the pain? Can we still be whole when our bodies suffer? How does our understanding of God change through these experiences?
You can subscribe or download this discussion on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe to the video series on YouTube.
Here’s an overview of our conversation:
EP20: Finding God in Our Pain & Weakness
Liuan Huska talks about her spiritual journey, struggles with chronic pain and feeling misunderstood, the spiritual pain of feeling dismissed by God, managing her mental health, how disability theologians address wholeness, ways our understanding of God can change during these darkest moments, and ways to better listen to those who are hurting around us.
Listen or download the full podcast here:
Video conversation:
Liuan Huska is an author and speaker focusing on topics of embodiment and spirituality. Her writing, on everything from chronic pain to evangelical fertility trends, has appeared in Christianity Today, The Christian Century, In Touch Magazine, Hyphen, Sojourners, and Church Health Reader. She lives with her husband and their three little boys in the Chicago area.
