I have begun the process of changing my mind about birds.
Sure, you may not find a stranger first sentence than that, but those closest to me know that I have this unreasonable phobia of our feathered friends. It has something to do with a mother bird dive-bombing my head to protect her nest when I was 5.
And no, to answer your question, I was not bothering her nest. I was simply going next door to a friend’s house. However, there is no reasoning with a mother bird. My neurosis aside, I am slowly taking steps to rediscovering the beauty (or some redeeming quality) in birds.
An Indiana winter can be brutal and bone-chilling. And it is not made any more bearable by the local meteorologists who giddily, and a bit too affectionately, begin referring to it as a Polar Vortex.
The tragedy is they don’t realize that by calling it a Polar Vortex, it psychologically becomes 20 degrees colder in our heads. Let’s just be honest here. We do not need Polar anything in Indiana, especially when it is already nearly pitch black at 4 p.m. in the middle of December.
But there was a moment a few years ago in late winter when darkness still owned the morning and the cold refused to let go of everything in its grip that I heard the sweetest song.
Through the shroud of night, before the sun’s first rays, amid the polar chill, a melody of hopeful anticipation pierced the dark veil of winter and announced that spring would soon be arriving.
It was glorious and profound.
The processional of spring, a time of life, new beginnings and spectacular beauty was coming. And it was being ushered in through song by feathered vocalists announcing its arrival.
I, a crusty-eyed morning zombie of multi-layered, nighttime attire (precoffee), could not miss this staggering metaphor.
When a season of darkness surrounds us and seems as if it will last forever, we may well begin to believe that this is the way life will always be. But even in the darkness that may surround us, if we are still enough to hear it and patient enough to trust it, there is always the sweet song of the Spirit, leading us in hopeful anticipation, surprising us with beauty in the present and giving us a glimpse of the life that’s yet to come.
I know it is terribly difficult to discuss how we can learn to see beauty amid the wreckage when we are in the throes of a painful life situation, whether it be temporary or permanent. But it is in this place where we must always begin — in the place of our pain, in the place of our suffering.
For it is in that place where we can, mostly easily, lose heart, feel lost and defeated, grow wildly cynical and begin to blame God for our condition or circumstance.
Even more, our pain can become the place from where we begin to live our lives.
The crushing weight of our suffering will always try to convince us that the pain we are experiencing is our only reality and that there is nothing redeemable there, ever. And as a result, the pain we are experiencing can begin to manifest outwardly in our lives into our words and actions, ultimately affecting how we see the world and how we relate to others.
That is what suffering can do. It can cause us to reside in our pain, no matter how great or small that pain is, and then become the lens through which we begin to see people, situations and the world as a whole.
And over time, our pain through suffering can very easily spiral downward and lead to questions and then the destruction of our identity, our worth and our purpose in life.
Living constantly in the burden and pain of our suffering can either become an end destination or a passageway for each of us.
As an end destination, the pain of our suffering can become a place where we stay in bitterness, sadness, anger, hatred and unforgiveness.
As a passageway, our pain through suffering can become the pathway to profound life transformation and new ways of seeing the world.
Suffering breaks us down into insufferable little parts where we can either self-destruct or cry out helplessly to God because we are in a place where we have seemingly lost control.
Our pride has been shattered. Our egos have been obliterated. And it is in our place of pain through suffering where we can choose whether we make it our final destination or a transformative passageway.
That is the profound mystery of suffering. Suffering strips away any and all control we believe we have over people and situations. And it is in this place, our place of suffering, the place where we have lost all control, where our hearts and minds can either be closed off or open to the healing and transformative love of God.
And no matter who you are or what you have been through or are currently going through, you can choose what you want to do with your pain and how you receive suffering. You can let it dominate and control how you see the world and relate to others.
Or you can use it as a means to be taught and guided into a new and more beautiful way of living.
Brandon Andress of Columbus is a former local church leader and a current contributor to the online Outside the Walls blog. His Outside the Walls podcast is available on iTunes. He can be reached at his website, brandon andress.com.
Brandon Andress of Columbus is a former local church leader and a current contributor to the online Outside the Walls blog. His Outside the Walls podcast is available on iTunes. He can be reached at his website, brandonandress.com.
