Where Doctrine Meets the Desolate
I cried in my home office with only the moon providing streaks of light for me. My sobs distorted my words so much I’m sure only God could understand my prayers—pleas for relief, a sign, a moment of comfort, or his fatherly touch—anything to carry me just one more step forward.
I stared at the shadowy rows of textbooks, Christian living, and theology books that lined my shelves. In one hand I held the sovereignty of God, but the warm embrace with which it once held me now rattled around me like chains. In another hand I held the truths of eternal life and glory, but their dazzling gold streets seemed tarnished against the pain I felt. I recounted the words and phrases I used to comfort other women before me.
“In one hand I held the sovereignty of God, but the warm embrace with which it once held me now rattled around me like chains.”
God is with you. Feelings are finicky, and while God may not feel near to you, the Bible tells us he is. I crumpled those words like a sheet of paper in my heart. Instead, questions raged inside. If he is, where is he then? What meaning do promises of nearness hold as I weep alone in the dark?
God is using this present suffering to sanctify you and cause you to cling less to the things of this world. I gritted my teeth together and crumpled that one as well. Is this truly kind discipline, Lord? Where’s your tender, fatherly care? And what good is this suffering if it only makes me more bitter toward you?
You miserable comforter! I cried with Job. Is there no end to your empty words? (Job 16:2–3). Only this indictment wasn’t meant for a group of heartless friends—it was against myself.
Despite my anger and confusion, I couldn’t reckon away God’s existence. Instead, I sat in the same place C.S. Lewis once found himself: “Not that I am in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not ‘So there’s no God after all,’ but ‘So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer’” (A Grief Observed).
I would find hope in those textbook doctrines again one day. I still pronounce God’s sovereignty and rejoice in eternal life to come. I still believe God is gentle toward his loved ones and tender in his dealings with us. I still believe in his compassionate discipline. But I didn’t come to that place by more lectures, books, or people reminding me of the positive spin of my situation. There would be many tears and many moments of throwing rocks toward heaven. There would be lament, despair, and prayers with no praise at all. But it would be in that place, where my desolate heart wrestled with my doctrine, that I would find hope in God again.
Suffering Sometimes Looks Like Hopeless Lament and Doubts
As believers, we tend to think suffering should look a certain way. We may think it’s permissible to be sad but convince ourselves we must hope and rejoice more than lament and despair. We read blog posts and social media snippets sharing how God did deep work in others’ suffering and how thankful they are for their trials because it grew their love for him. They say it brought them to their knees every morning and made them saturate their lives with Scripture even more. Maybe it did, and maybe that’s how God worked through their suffering.
But that’s not how it will always look. Sometimes, suffering will be a reckoning with our doctrine. It will appear as hopeless laments. Sometimes there may even be questions and doubts. But God is still there.
“Sometimes, suffering will be a reckoning with our doctrine. It will appear as hopeless laments.”
When we consider the Psalms, we may only think of their praises and rejoicing even while facing fiery troubles. While that’s true of many of the psalms, it isn’t the whole of the psalms. We often overlook passages like Psalm 88 because they’re uncomfortable. Psalm 88 is a psalm of crying and fear, of desperate pleas and mournful sounds, of attacks and horrors. Unlike the psalms of lament that end with phrases such as “Yet I will still praise the Lord,” this one ends with these mournful words: “You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; my companions have become darkness.” Why would such a desolate, hopeless song be preserved for thousands of years in this holy songbook?
Oddly enough in a psalm like this we find a companion in these words that allow our desolate hearts to wrestle and work to reconcile our pain with our doctrine. We aren’t forced to put a positive spin on our suffering. Here we find ourselves in tears alongside the psalmist. We throw our accusations, our demands, and our despair at the throne. We soak Christ’s feet with the tears that won’t stop flowing. We sob and hiccup as we try to speak, and all the while the Spirit prays what we really need (Rom. 8:26). And God bends low to listen. He doesn’t condemn. He doesn’t tell us to get up and wash our faces. As Paul Tripp writes,
Psalm 88 reminds me that the God in whom I hope really does understand the most profound suffering in life. He hears with patience and mercy the most desperate cries of the human heart. He never minimizes, mischaracterizes, misunderstands, or mocks my struggle. Our Lord redeems the lost and the lonely, the rebel and the fearful, the confused and the doubtful, the sinner and the sufferer, the poor and the forsaken, the rejecter and the one rejected. There is no thought so distorted, no emotion so powerful, no circumstance so horrible, no action so twisted, and no desire so desperate as to be outside of the reach of the Redeemer and his grace.
When our tears can’t flow anymore, and our throats are sore from crying, God is still there. Unchanged. His love is still abounding and his grace still encompassing. He doesn’t look down on us with disdain (Ps. 51:17). He doesn’t shake his head. He doesn’t draw away. He draws near (Ps. 34:18). He calls us beloved. He puts mysterious hope in our hearts to press on, sustaining us for that eternal life that felt so distant and inapplicable to us before (John 6:37–39). Maybe he even comes to us tangibly through the hug of a friend, the text of a family member, or a meal from a church member.
“When our tears can’t flow anymore, and our throats are sore from crying, God is still there. Unchanged.”
In these times, we can feel a lot of guilt that we aren’t as holy as others who we see proclaiming their suffering and rejoicing on social media—the ones who say they grew closer to God, kept their Bibles nearer, were on their knees more, and worshipped harder.
Maybe for you, that wasn’t what happened. Like me, you were too weary to memorize Bible verses or engage in deep study. But God can still teach us in these desolate places. Maybe you learned to lament. You learned to see God in the ordinary places of hugs and hand squeezes. You read a psalm a day and tried to pray it back to God. You learned what it means that God keeps each of our tears in a bottle. You learned how patient and gentle God really is because he listened to your angry words and still loved you. Sometimes, suffering isn’t about learning to surf the waves but instead clinging to the piece of driftwood God has provided until the storm is over.
Trusting God to Carry Each Sufferer How He Sees Best
When we find a friend in her own suffering and desolation, it’s tempting to guide them on our own beaten path of suffering to healing. Just hear this truth, read this book, watch this video, do this ritual, keep up this habit, join this group, find something to be joyful in, and you’ll survive.
Yet God doesn’t treat his people that way. He didn’t inscribe a step-by-step prescriptive manual for suffering. Instead, he made us complex, unique creatures. He preserved stories of how he comforted his people in his holy wisdom. For Elijah he whispered in the wind (1 Kings 19:9–18). For Job he came in the whirlwind (Job 38–41). For Peter he reconfirmed his calling (John 21:15–19). For Paul he said, “My grace is sufficient” (2 Cor. 12:1–10). He allowed Daniel to be thrown in the lions’ den before he closed their mouths (Dan. 6). For Mary he provided a dear son as she watched her first son die on the cross (John 19:23–27). His ways are higher than our own, and for each one of us he comes in the way we need the most.
Regardless of what our own suffering has looked like, we can learn to sit quietly with one another. We can weep with one another. We can resist the urge to break the awkward silence with a positive spin. We can ask, “How can I best love you right now?” and offer our hands and words in ways that are helpful.
Our suffering may look different, but this reality does not: We share a gentle and powerful God who loves us without wavering, who reaches down to carry both the rejoicing sufferer and the mournful sufferer, the reassured sufferer and the doubting sufferer. Resting in this truth, we can allow our siblings in Christ to reconcile their doctrine with their desolation without our prodding. God will bring each of his children home, in his own kind and patient time.
Lara d’Entremont is a wife and mom to three from Nova Scotia, Canada. Lara is a writer and learner at heart—always trying to find time to scribble down some words or read a book. Her desire in writing is to help women develop solid theology they can put into practice—in the mundane, the rugged terrain, and joyful moments. You can find more of her writing at laradentremont.com.