I’ve been reading a book about different personality types, and my particular type, it turns out, tries to avoid pain at all costs.

Now, I get that it’s human nature to avoid pain, but apparently people with my personality type will go to nearly superhuman lengths to avoid it.  It seems that pain is something that is particularly difficult for someone with my makeup to deal with.

And since God isn’t really interested in stagnant character development… the past 11 months have been some of the most difficult of my life.  It started on March 4th of last year, when I tore my abdomen on a bike ride.  I haven’t been on the bike since.

Since then, hardship has come in ever-increasing magnitudes, from financial difficulties, to more physical setbacks, to major challenges in my business.  I could write pages of the variety of pains I’ve experienced since that fateful bike ride.

And if I’m completely honest, I would say that this season has left me feeling more than a little abandoned by God.  There have been multiple occasions where I’ve felt like I just can’t seem to get a break, and that if God truly loved me, then he would spare me from much of the hardship I’ve experienced.

We all experience pain in our lives.  We all experience what it’s like being alone and left to fend for ourselves. So what do we do when life beats us down and it feels like God has left us high and dry?

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Over the past week or so, I’ve had a couple of experiences that have spoken deeply to me.

After leaving work recently with feelings of depression related to ongoing city delays on some construction we’re trying to complete at our new space, I drove up to the local mountains and wrestled with the inner demons that tell you you’re all alone, that the fighting has gotten you nowhere, and that it would be easier to just give up.

And the truth is, it would have been easier to give up.

I wandered outside and took a brief hike, escaping the madness in my head and enjoying scenery that can only be described as big.

And the big gave me a sense of peace.  It was as if God himself were reaching down from the mountaintop and breathing hope into my very soul.  If he cares enough to create this beauty for the sole purpose for us to enjoy, then maybe he actually cares for me too.

 

The following day work took me through Malibu.  I found myself eager to take in the beauty of the crisp blue winter sky as it met the distant ocean, all while marveling at the power of the waves against the seashore. 

The problem was, it wasn’t a particularly beautiful day.  It was overcast, not great visibility, and the sea was fairly calm.

My norm is to get angry when things aren’t as I deem they should be.  But instead I made a conscious effort to enjoy the beauty that was there, even if it wasn’t a perfect beauty.

And later, leaning against a railing watching the gray ocean waves gently roll in against a dull sky, God brought me back to a moment from several years ago.

You see, when I made my first significant, scary, step with Wild Goose (back in 2010), I happened to be in La Jolla.  On an overcast day.  Leaning against a railing and watching the gray ocean waves roll in.

It was as if God was saying, “Look Nate, I was with you during that scary time back then.  And I’m with you now…”

It was a moment, smack in the middle of the imperfection of the scenery, where God reminded me that he hasn’t gone anywhere.  That even though I’ve been experiencing difficulty, hardship, and pain, I wasn’t alone.

And being isolated and alone during hard times is, in my estimation, one of the biggest hurts a human can experience.

 

I’ve come to realize in the days since then that despite my ambitions to avoid pain at all costs, Life doesn’t happen without the Storm. 

 

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In nature, when there is no rain, we get the dead, drought-stricken Southern California chaparral that has become so prominent these past few years.  But thanks to storms, they’ve recently transformed into verdant green hills.  And I see these green hills, the dead literally brought back to life, everywhere I look.

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I’m learning that the stark reality is that, in life, pain is unavoidable.  Pain does not mean that God has walked away in pursuit of someone more interesting or more successful or more virtuous.  Pain is just a part of the way things are, not an indication of the degree to which God loves me and cares for me.

I’m learning that maybe I’ve not been abandoned by God after all.  Rather, the rhythms of a healthy life include storms, then sun, then more storms, then more sun.

And though I don’t have all the answers, (or very many at all), I look at the new greenery around me, and it gives me hope.

Hope that I’m not alone.

Hope that when my storms blow through, I might spring to life in my personal dead areas, just like the local hills have.

And though our weather forecast calls for several days of rain coming up, I’m finding that I can enjoy the small break of sunshine, and the glaring realization that if it were sunny all the time, that if our reality was one devoid of the pain and discomfort of storms, there would be no life.  And Life, after all, is the goal.

 

And I find that incredibly comforting in a time like this.