the fellowship of suffering

What if life is not about trying to be better? What if what matters is becoming present in the midst of it?

I’m mulling over the introductory chapters of my preordered copy of K.J. Ramsey’s new book, This Too Shall Last. It is a raw account of learning to sit with pain and suffering so that grace has room to well up in our weakness and speak louder than our shame.

It is a message that has arrived in my life at the odd juxtaposition of facing the pain of perfectionism, the shame of singleness, and the inescapable reality of my identity as a writer. In this book, K.J. weaves details that are not my own with words that almost could be, into a story so deep and true it encompasses all of us. I found myself listening with the ears of my heart to her voice, (my voice?), the Spirit’s voice—still and small and real—providing me with the space to be.

And so I circle back around to this: What if life is not about trying to be better? What if it’s about learning to be?

Two AM feels far too early for the day to begin, yet here I am, wakeful and waiting. I’m wondering what it would be like to live without constantly bearing the weight of trying …

I meant to finish that sentence with any number of things, and yet, the “trying” in itself is weight enough. It’s the gospel of self-sufficiency, believing that I can, by my own efforts, achieve transformation. Christ’s sacrifice may have been necessary to accomplish my salvation, but acknowledging that is weakness enough for any one lifetime, thank-you-very-much. “I’ll take it from here” is the mantra I live, but never speak.

How many of us have “tried” ourselves into exhaustion, depression, isolation? Any number of hopeless conditions throb loudly with our futile pursuits of betterment. Failure masquerades as our identity, dressed in a thick cloak of shame.

What if I allowed myself to sit with my limitations, without slandering the act with the label of laziness? Or rested in the place of my weakness without condemning my lack? I might truly believe Jesus would meet me there, not merely to offer a passing exchange of His strength and head off in the opposite direction. But rather, to sit with me on the ash heap, entering into the fellowship of my suffering, and inviting me into His.

Personally, I have not experienced the ache of chronic illness, yet I am intimately acquainted with the devastation of ancient sin. It is that chronic condition that lays us all low and cuts us off from the perfection we were made to walk in. When Eve reached for the forbidden fruit, as K.J. so effectively describes, she was reaching for a wisdom too vast and weighty for her created being to hold. And so we have been doing ever since. With our grabs for control, power, answers and understanding, we seek to swallow substance we were not designed to contain. We are worn-out wineskins, ripping apart at the seams.

When I signed on to receive this book, I little realized how profoundly I would encounter God within it. I was still busy minimizing my own pain narrative, impatient to flip forward into the chapter on triumph and leave brokenness behind to clean up its own inconvenient mess.

What do perfectionism, dissatisfied singleness, and an unrealized calling have to do with chronic illness? As it turns out, quite a lot. They are all unique expressions of the shared experience of suffering. You will have your own list, and every gasp and sigh of it matters. I invite you to bring it along with you into the spaces where K.J. and I, and so many weary pilgrims before and behind us, are learning to sit with Jesus, to find His grace is enough.