Where Do I Go When Life Is Too Much?
As Christians, we are not exempt from pain and suffering. How can we find refuge in God both in answered prayers and in enduring sorrow?
“Brittany's brother was seriously injured at work, and he may not make it.”
When I heard these words, my brain pushed pause on everything else, and my insides did whatever happens when we say “my heart sank” or “my gut clenched.” No, no, no! This cannot be happening to them. “God, how much loss can one family take? Why them? Why now?”
“Oh God, please sustain his life and heal his body. Please surround this family with your protection like a hedge around them, to keep them from further illness or injury.” I prayed with a sense of desperation that comes when we humans stare our smallness in the face—our incapacities to change or even influence so many outcomes.
The painful circumstances for my friend and her family had already accumulated over months—her beloved father passed after a ten-week battle with pancreatic cancer, the same day his younger brother passed from his own fifteen-month battle with brain cancer.
The parents of these men had faced significant physical difficulty as their sons’ journeys on this earth were nearing the end. Now, nine weeks after burying two dearly loved family members, this accident. This injury. This tragedy.
Where do we go when circumstances are more than we can handle, when the sense of overwhelm is crushing?
A Song of Strength and Trust
"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust." Psalm 91:1-2
The opening of this song from Israel's Psalter beautifully tells us who God is for those who dwell in him, which is a metaphor for being in relationship with him. He is the shelter for those who find their staying place in relationship with him.
His shadow is safety for abiding, for continuing to be and do in the shade of it. He is our refuge. He is our fortress, our stronghold, whom we can trust completely—the integrity of his strength will never be compromised in the slightest. These are all metaphors of security and protection from attack. [1]
The songwriter also references God by the titles Elyon and El Shaddai, meaning “the Most High God” and either “nourisher” or “God of the Mountain”. [2] El Shaddai emphasizes God’s power and highlights his ability to master creation and overpower nature for his good plan. [3]
His titles and the metaphors are interwoven in these verses to reveal one truth: the all-powerful God, with full capacity to overpower nature, is also the shelter and refuge for those who trust him. He is both infinitely powerful and infinitely safe.
The song continues this theme by promising what he will do for those who dwell in him: deliver, cover, send angels to guard, protect, and rescue.
Ultimate Refuge in Temporary Danger
The lyrics in this Psalm evoke in my mind a picture of comprehensive protection. As I sit with that picture, I wonder: what truth do the lyrics actually reflect since the picture of complete peace and wholeness is not yet reality?
Why the overwhelming circumstances for my friend, Brittany, and her family? Why the series of events that leave a person unable to breathe well because it is all just too heavy? Why a severe injury, possible death, in an already difficult set of losses for her?
This family, along with their church community, had prayed for healing from cancer in this life as fervently and with as much faith in God as a human can understand. Yet, they had laid their loved ones to rest. Now, a severe unknown.
Part of a drilling mechanism unexpectedly started working during repairs, and my friend's brother was left with a fractured skull in three places, barely responsive and unlikely to survive. Again, this family, along with their church community, cried out to God for healing and for rescue from this possible loss.
He survived. Eight out of ten who suffer this injury do not survive beyond surgery if they even make it to the hospital. He regained consciousness with memory of his family and required a fraction of the predicted ICU stay. Half of those who do survive the injury and surgery live with major brain damage or health complications. He became a case study for surgeons in unprecedented brain health after his injury, and some of the doctors recognized evidence of the miraculous. Incredible!
This outcome is in the picture I imagine when I contemplate Psalm 91 at face value—the All-Powerful Creator delivering from physical hardship for those who dwell in him. This is indeed a beautiful and peaceful dimension even of this life, from Bible times to now. And also, a dimension of the reality of this life is loss, grief, and suffering while we wait for the renewal of all things in Christ.
The picture Psalm 91 describes includes the “now” of God’s grace, help, strength, and courage to walk with him and others who know him during hardship—it includes the “now” of some healing and some loss. It includes the “not yet” of life eternal, living in the comprehensive protection and wholeness of the renewed earth in his presence.
In such a short time, my friend and her family have experienced, I think, both the now and the hope of the not yet in God's promises. They have experienced the Ultimate Refuge amidst the temporary danger of illness and injury—the temporal outcomes were different, the Refuge is the same.
Going to the Almighty, Our Refuge
In the moments above, my friend and her family could not change the physical outcome of her brother’s injury. They could rush to their cars and drive to the hospital to offer presence and perhaps input into care discussions with the doctor. They could cry out to God in their words, and even in silence, cry out to him through desperation of heart turned toward him. They could reach out to all the Christ-followers they walk with in life to cry out with them in this overwhelming time. I could simply bring this burden to our good Father and communicate support to my friend as she drove the hours to be with her family.
Simple actions to choose when circumstances overwhelm you:
- Be honest with God and yourself about the grief, the anxiety from what you can’t control, and the most raw desires you have for the outcome.
- Share with other believers, as is appropriate for the situation. Community is God’s grace to all of us—he works in and through trusted relationships continually. I think that his Spirit and wisdom in and through other believers are part of the experience of his refuge.
- Seek wisdom from others who have walked through the circumstances you are facing, including those who know how to deal with the trauma of the moment.
- Do what you have the capacity and opportunity to do, and release the rest to the One Who is All-Powerful. This kind of release can be a process, perhaps one that you walk with others.
- Play music or narrated Scriptures, such as Psalm 91, about God’s goodness in the background of your activities when you have space, and maybe sometimes when you do not feel like it.
- Before circumstances get overwhelming, work on developing connections with trusted community in Christ who will be present and walk with you.
- Before circumstances get overwhelming, when life is more normal, continually seek understanding about the “now” and “not yet” in Scripture and lean into the good of the “now” and the hope of the “not yet.”
Footnotes
[1] ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2008), 1054.
[2] Walter C. Kaiser Jr., The Promise-Plan of God: A Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 65.
[3] Kaiser, The Promise-Plan of God, 66.
