Only Through

It’s possible that I share too much on this blog.  I don’t even know who’s reading it, and that’s not the important thing.  This is still the place where I am processing myself to myself.  I’m just happy to have a couple of you along, because I think it encourages me to be honest with myself.

So, in all honesty, I’ll acknowledge the fact that I’m currently in therapy.  I’ve got some life stuff going on (a lot of it), and I work the sort of job that takes an emotional and spiritual toll on a man.  So, I decided that I needed to outsource some counseling.  I’m a terrible patient.  I have a Master of Social Work degree and used to think I was going to be a professional therapist.  I got all sorts of training and certifications.  The Proverb says that knowledge without wisdom is not good, and I have all kinds of knowledge.  So, that makes me a terrible patient.  Combined with my natural proclivity for arrogance, my knowledge truly lacks wisdom.

I found a therapist.  I like him.  He’s an interesting guy.  Because of my knowledge I looked for some pretty important things that I thought I needed in a therapist, specific types of therapy for the things I knew I needed to deal with.  And, because I really wanted to do things right, I made a choice in my heart—I was going to let him be in charge, no matter how much I wanted to fight it.I’m arrogant, I’m cocky.  I figured that with all of my knowledge I would be able to breeze through all of this stuff and check the boxes.  I would do all of the therapy and then I would be instantly better, having achieved every treatment plan.  I would be magically changed.  And it would be relatively painless.

I was terribly wrong.

He warned me before we started.  He told me that it was going to be difficult.  I nodded sagely, because I already knew that.  But I silently believed I was going to be the exception. 

I was not.  He told me that our work was going to stir up all kinds of…stuff.  He was right.  It did.  It has.

And it’s been really painful…

I’m sometimes surprised that I remember it.  He hit me so hard.  I didn’t even feel it, not until the next day.  But it had rattled my entire world.

The fight had started at a measured pace, with us circling each other and snapping out a few jabs.  I was starting to find his rhythm and starting to time  his movement.  And then he ruined it all…

He arced over the top with a raging overhand right hand, catching me right on the chin.  Honestly, the only reason I know what happened is because I watched the video later.  I never saw the punch.  I didn’t even feel it.  All I knew was that up was down and I was looking at my feet while my legs wobbled underneath me.  He hit me really hard.

He saw an opportunity there and jumped on the arm-in guillotine, snagging the head and arm and pulling me into his closed guard.  I couldn’t stop him from dragging me to the mat.  I was still pretty wobbled from the punch and hadn’t even thought of addressing the choke before I felt the clamp on my carotid arteries starting to take effect.

My senses recovered just enough that I recognized the submission I had been placed in—arm-in guillotine.  I could hear his corner yelling at him (“you’ve got him now”) and at me (“we’ve got you now”).  He had my neck and he had my arm.  He was squeezing, and he was strong.  It was hurting and, worse, I could feel the choke starting cinch.

I think I could hear my corner yelling, and maybe their advice was helping.  There was so much happening and so much noise that I don’t remember.  But I knew what submission I was in, and I knew the worst thing I could try to do.

The worst thing I do was pull away.  If I tried to back out, I was going to get worse.  The only way out of the submission was through the submission.  I had to greet that attack with my own attack.  The only way was for me to apply pressure of my own.

I started to build a base, driving my head into the mat.  If I pulled away I would give him space to adjust his choke and make it better and he would have access to the soft tissue of my neck.  So I accepted the pain so I could minimize the choke.  Pain was pain, but I couldn’t afford to be unconscious.  Into the choke, not away from it.  I took all the space away.

I could hear my corner yelling—three of my best friends whose voices I had grown to recognize.  “Hand fight!”  I heard.  “Pressure on and hand fight!”So I did.  Pressure on and hand fight.  I could feel the choke starting to slip.  It hurt a little bit more for a moment because the bone of his arms had found the bone of my jaw.  That was only pain. I wasn’t feeling the choke anymore.  I could handle pain.  Slowly, I fought his hand to find the elbow.  More pressure down—now wasn’t the time to stop.  I quested back to his elbow and found the joint, peeling it around my chin and off my neck.  Finally, then, I was able to posture out of the submission—a submission that my pressure had turned into a submission attempt.

Now I was free.

The only way through is through the pain.

I accept that pain is a part of life, but that doesn’t mean I like it.  It’s the nature of living in a fallen world.  Things hurt.  Sometimes they hurt because I did something stupid to myself.  Sometimes they hurt because someone else did something stupid to me. Sometimes they hurt just because they hurt. 

I accept the pain, but that doesn’t mean I like it.

It was good for me to be afflicted so that I could learn Your statutes.  (Psalms 119:71)

Like most people, my natural inclination is to turn away from the pain and avoid it.  I can wear myself out running from the hurt.  Eventually, it will catch up to me, even if I do run.  I can’t escape the pain, but that doesn’t mean I won’t try to run.  My natural inclination is to avoid the pain, even when I know it’s going to transform me into someone—someone—better. 

I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world."  (John 16:33)

Then come the times when I react differently, maybe like my time now.  I choose a different path.  I choose to greet the pain, because the only way is through the pain.  I know the only way is through, so I choose the pain—anybody who has ever trained with me knows me well enough to see when this happens.  I make a choice.  I make a choice to treat the pain like it’s an opponent.

Consider it a great joy, my brothers, whenever you experience various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.  But endurance must do its complete work, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.  (James 1:2-4)

I engage is this weird internal struggle for radical acceptance—the knowledge that my relief lies on the other side of the discomfort.  I tell myself that I am going to suffer whatever it takes to find that other side.  In these times I think I might see that discomfort as something of a challenge.  I view it as a thing to be conquered and overcome.  I want to turn every gun in my arsenal on it and vaporize it.  The worst thing I could do is try to run away from it, so I choose to embrace it.  I attack it with everything I’ve got at my disposal.

Do not despise the LORD's instruction, my son, and do not loathe His discipline; for the LORD disciplines the one He loves, just as a father, the son he delights in.  (Proverbs 3:11-12)

Sometimes people tell me that I need to “sit” in my pain.  I need to spend some time understanding and knowing it.  I should learn about its origins and develop a strategy.  But I’m not built to sit still.  I’m built for combat.  God made me to attack the pain.  Every challenge is an enemy to be destroyed, and that includes that enemy that is my self of my own making.

For God has not given us a spirit of fearfulness, but one of power, love, and sound judgment. (2 Timothy 1:7)

I’m not good at acknowledging that I’m hurting.  I’m not good at acknowledging that I’m weak.  I’ll hide the pain in mission, performing so that the universe knows that I am not vulnerable.  I’ll perform so that I don’t have to admit that I’m in pain.  Pain is a thing to overcome.

But this fight doesn’t have a timer.  I don’t know when this round ends.  I don’t know when I get to stop fighting.  So my instinct is to just keep fighting, even if I don’t know what I’m fighting.  I don’t always know how to stop.

The LORD will fight for you; you must be quiet." (Exodus 14:14)

That might be the hardest part of the fight

.  I don’t know when to fight and when not to.  I just want to fight.  It makes me feel like I’m doing something, even when nothing would be the better thing to do. 

I’m not in charge of when the fight ends—not this one.  I want it to end now so I can emerge victorious.  I want it to end tomorrow so that I only have to hold on for one more day.  I would settle for the day after tomorrow, because then I would at least know when the pain would end.

But it’s not mine to know.  It is mine to look to the right place in the midst of my fight, to my master and savior.  It is mine to find the source of my strength, even when I don’t fell strong.

The Lord will give you meager bread and water during oppression, but your Teacher will not hide Himself any longer. Your eyes will see your Teacher, and whenever you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: "This is the way. Walk in it." (Isaiah 30:20-21)

I’ll know the fight is over when it ends.  In the meantime, I stay in the fight.  I pressure into the pain because the only way is through the pain.

Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; be persistent in prayer. (Romans 12:12)

 But then, sometimes, I make the choice that it’s time to move forward.  It’s time to get better.  It’s time to be different.

 And not only that, but we also rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope.  This hope will not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.  (Romans 5:3-5)

But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may reside in me.  (2 Corinthians 12:9)