Surviving the Winter of Suffering
When the snow begins to flurry in the sky for the first time of the season, some of us squeal with excitement with eyes lit up like children’s. Donning mitts and hats, we run to twirl under heavy flakes and gather snowballs.
But others, we slide the curtains shut and groan. We know this isn’t the first—it feels like we just got rid of this stuff a handful of months ago—and we know it isn’t the last. So we close ourselves away, turn up the heat, and dream of spring, wishing perhaps we could burrow away like the black bear and sleep away the winter days.
During a blizzard of suffering, I drew the blinds down in my heart. I pulled inward so I could survive. I eked out a small corner for myself and gave the bare minimum to the world. I didn’t know any other way forward. I met the needs of my family, I checked off the homekeeping list, and then I crawled back into the darkness. When I sat down for a check in with my psychiatrist, she said I had shut down—my eyes were distant and my voice monotone. I went into hibernation to finish the icy winds of our suffering.
Long after the suffering had ended, spring sunlight finally graced our lives, and the normal ways of life resumed, I remained holed up inside myself. I survived. Every little inconvenience, every complaint, every hardship felt like a threat of winter returning—like snow in April—and I lashed out at them.
I had likewise turned cold against God. I still prayed at meals, I still read my Bible and Christian living books, I attended church, and I sang through family worship. But bitter winds of winter climbed like frost over every bit of my heart. When I read passages about God providing for and never abandoning his people, I wanted to fling the Bible against the wall. While I remained calm on the outside, inside I raged at those passages.
“How dare you?” I cried out in my mind. “How dare you declare that you love me, that you provide, and that you will never abandon your people! You abandoned me! I cried out, day and night, and nothing changed. You never helped me! You further broke me. You say you will not snuff out a smoldering wick, but you drenched me. You say a bruised reed you will not break, but you stomped on me.”
I feared for my faith as I considered these words, so I stopped saying them altogether. I said the nice ones—I prayed for my children, I prayed for my pastors, I prayed for anyone who asked me to—but I didn’t pray for myself or ask God questions anymore.
That’s when the frost of bitterness crackled even thicker over my heart. I stewed in silence with the unanswerable questions, because I feared the only answer was unbelief.
In the darkest, coldest winters of suffering, the spinning and howling snow can make us blind. As we climb inward to hibernate through the difficulties, we pull the drapes closed so we can no longer see. As we do, we plead with God to bring the spring, each day peeking out between the curtains to see if God melted the ice and snow yet.
When we see that he still hasn’t brought the spring sunshine, we accuse him of unfaithfulness. And we start to believe spring is a figment of our imagination.
That’s what I did. God didn’t take away the mental illness, he didn’t heal my body, and when he finally answered my prayers, I had shriveled in my cave and didn’t dare believe that peace had surely come. Every time a slightly cooler wind blew through, I shrunk away in bitterness and scoffed at those who had announced the springtime.
But I had my eyes so set on those answers, and those answers happening immediately, that I completely missed the hundreds of whispers of spring that he did send. I didn’t see the meals brought to us as works of providence. I didn’t view my in-laws opening their home to me as a gift of grace. I didn’t see the friend (who had gone through the exact same suffering as me) as someone God had providentially provided. I didn’t see the family God brought into our life to help us with the children as a part of his wise foresight. I viewed all of it as helpful concoincidents. I removed God out of the picture, because in my mind God should have only been working on answering one prayer: Heal the sicknesses, get us home. In this hardness of heart, I missed the many blessings he sent.
The even greater gift amidst it all: As I hurled accusations of abandonment and unfaithfulness, God remained by my side and loved me as he always did. As I shook my fists and demanded that he show me his love, he carried me and sustained me through the hardest grief and darkest trials I have faced. While my heart remained hard, he waited and patiently thawed it. Once it beat again with warmth and life, he took my chin in his hands and lifted my gaze to see how he had remained with me all this time. He showed me that winter season from the mountaintops, only this time with eyes of faith to see his hand. As I wept with both repentance and gratitude, he didn’t cross his arms and say I told you so—he welcomed me with his embrace.