Limping Heavenward

We don't connect to God only in our joy or in our thanksgiving. We also connect to Him in our mourning and our grief. And so, if you think about it, a biblical lament is really a necessary component of life in a fallen world. Anything else would be inauthentic or even emotionally immature. As Christians, how can we endure suffering that upends every aspect of life?

Perhaps permanently. The impact and the hurt that comes from comprehensive and chronic suffering is only compounded. If our theology of suffering isn't rightly drawn from the scriptures, so stay with us for a special conversation on this difficult yet immensely practical topic. Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and this is the Friday edition of Renewing Your Mind.

In a moment, I'll be joined by Carrie Hahn, an associate editor here at Ligoneer Ministries, a certified biblical counselor, and the author of the new book, Limping Heavenward. living by faith in comprehensive and chronic suffering. You'll learn more about that book today, but if you'd like a copy or know someone who might be helped by it, You can request one when you donate before midnight tonight at renewingyourmind.org. or when you call us at 800-435-4343.

Well, calling in from a home in Texas is Carrie Hahn. Carrie, welcome to Renewing Your Mind. Thanks so much, Nathan.

Well, for our listeners, could you briefly share your story? And before you do, I'll just say when I picked up a copy of your book, one of the things that struck me so much was the subtitle. Because you reference comprehensive And chronic suffering.

So as you share your story, could you also explain what you mean by comprehensive and chronic suffering? Yeah, so I use the term comprehensive suffering to describe suffering that's unique in terms of its totality.

So meaning that it disrupts most or all of the major categories of our lives, and that would include things like our physical health. our spouse and children or lack of a spouse and children, our finances, our career, our friendships, our ministry opportunities and church involvement, and our home and belongings.

So it's not just one or two of those pillars of life falling down, it's most or all of them falling down at the same time. And chronic suffering will be more familiar to readers. It describes suffering that turns out to be not just for a season, but rather a permanent intrusion into the life we once enjoyed and now we have to adapt to that and endure it for the rest of our earthly lives. And so, my journey with comprehensive and chronic suffering began in 2012. It was out of the blue on a weekend road trip, and I ended up being hospitalized because all of the sudden I was completely unable to walk.

Or function with what turned out to be a severe case of mono that the doctor said would get better, but it didn't.

So over the next two years, almost all of those pillars holding up my life were torn down. I lost my physical health and couldn't function like a normal adult. I lost my job and experienced unemployment and a lot of financial stress. I lost a serious dating relationship that was heading toward marriage. I lost valued friendships, and I lost my home and almost all my belongings because I had to leave California, where I'd been living for about 10 years, to move back to Texas and live in a tiny room in my parents' house at the age of 34.

And I really thought at that point that now that I was having to start life all over again in Texas, I really thought that after that comprehensive suffering, that God would let me start over again. But that really didn't happen either. My health got worse, and the doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. I struggled to make new friends at church or anywhere for that matter and was really lonely. I couldn't find a job to save my life, and so finances were really tough just being a single person with no spouse to help pay my bills or cover medical insurance.

And it really felt like I was trapped in a hallway and I was trying to get from this old life that was now inaccessible to me to a new life. But it felt like God was keeping all the doors locked no matter how hard I was banging on them. And so, as that comprehensive suffering turned into years of essentially sitting all alone in a room in my parents' house, that combination of comprehensive suffering and chronic suffering. really resulted in profound disruptions in my relationship with God. And I had always heard stories from other Christians that in their deepest and darkest affliction, that that was when they sensed God's presence the most and saw him work in the most amazing ways.

And that those were the times when the body of Christ surrounded them with love and care and support. But none of that was my lived experience. I really couldn't sense God's presence at all after a while. And I didn't have many people coming alongside me. And I just remember there was this one watershed day sitting in my room, and it felt like.

The last bit of my faith just got sucked out of my soul, and that was very disorienting for me because since I was saved, I've loved studying the Bible. I had formal theological training, I had done a lot of ministry and discipleship and counseling.

So I never really thought that I could end up in that kind of a place in my faith. And so the book Limping Heavenward is really the fruit of my own struggle for. those 12 years to try to reconcile the things that I'd always believed so strongly before about God's character and ways with these life circumstances that seemed to be violently contradicting that narrative. One of the things, Carrie, that I so appreciate about your book is that you are refreshingly honest. In how you share your story and describe your suffering.

So, thank you for being willing to be vulnerable to share your story in the way that you have in Limping Heavenwood. But with so many books already available on the topic of suffering, why did you write this book? I found myself getting somewhat frustrated when reading a lot of books on suffering during those years because a lot of the questions and struggles that I had weren't being addressed in those books. And I think that's because those books weren't intending to address comprehensive and chronic suffering specifically. They seemed to more address suffering in kind of a garden variety sense and had the underlying assumptions that their readers were going through suffering maybe in just one major category of life while the rest of their life was relatively stable, or that that suffering was just a season that would eventually end.

Or that the readers weren't really struggling to hold on to their faith. And so I wrote this book for everyone who kind of feels like an outlier or on the fringes and maybe aren't getting the help that they need from a lot of other really good books simply because they might need a book that zooms in on these unique elements of the experience of comprehensive and chronic suffering.

Well going back to the title of the book, Limping Heavenward. There's one paragraph early on in the book that I simply just loved it. And as soon as I read it, I texted it to a number of people that I care about. And I just wanna read it for our listeners. This is what you write.

In the race of faith, it doesn't matter how quickly we can run. It just matters that we are moving in the right direction toward the Lord. and that we don't give up. Limping isn't less noble. oh less difficult than running.

In fact, sometimes the opposite is true. Our limp is real. But so is the destination of heaven. Our groaning is real, but so is the glory that will one day be revealed to those who by God's grace endure to the end. Carrie, can you just tell us a little bit more about that image of limping?

Yeah, there were a lot of different things that came together for me to come up with that title, but. The most immediate one in what you're referencing is: I live by this little hill. There are not many hills in Texas, but there's a very small hill in our neighborhood that seems like a big hill because there aren't any. And so, a lot of times, walkers and joggers will go up and down this hill, and I see all kinds of people going up and down that hill. There are people who are very young and fit, and they're running so fast, and they're the types of people that we would.

naturally in the flesh tend to Think are the epitome, or that we would want to emulate because they're young and strong and fast. But over the years, and as I've gotten older, I've really started to appreciate the 70-year-old that I see chugging up that hill like so slowly with so much determination because I think that our admiration for people shouldn't be based on How well or how easily they can do something, but rather on How many burdens and limitations they have to carry as they do that and they still do it and they persevere.

Well, it's evident that you are a gifted writer. And I couldn't put this book down once I started reading it, except for the times where I had to pause to pray, to pray for you, to pray for other people in my life. Just to stop and even reflect on seasons of suffering in my past. And to express gratitude for not being in a season of suffering right now, and thinking about ways. that I've come alongside others who are suffering.

Or having to repent when I realize that when I have come alongside those who were suffering, I didn't always do it in the best way.

Well, Carrie, did writing this book change you in any way? I would say that the writing process didn't change me so much as the 12 years of suffering that led up to being able to write it. Those were really the years that changed me, even though at the time it didn't seem like anything was changing, or actually it seemed like they were changing for the worse in my faith. But I would say that getting the opportunity to publish this book Has changed me in this sense that it has humbled me before the Lord to see how. He could use such horrific things that seem utterly pointless and irredeemable to me to hopefully strengthen other saints and help them endure in the faith and their own suffering through this book.

And I really didn't see how any of what's happened or is still happening to me could be used for good. But God proved me wrong, and that was humbling. I'm speaking with Carrie Hahn. She's the author of the new book, Limping Heavenward: Living by Faith in Comprehensive and Chronic Suffering. Carrie, is this a book only for those who are presently experiencing suffering?

Absolutely not. While I did write it to speak personally to people who were actually experiencing comprehensive and chronic suffering, I really just as much wrote it to help every believer in the body of Christ better understand the kinds of struggles that these sufferers face and to teach them to love the Christians around them and in their local churches better. Because I do see huge gaps in care in the church toward people experiencing comprehensive and chronic suffering.

So my hope and prayer is that everyone who reads the book will find themselves better equipped to help these kinds of sufferers and to take care that they don't just hurt them further, either through their action toward them or their inaction.

Well, let's get to some of the content of the book. You spend a lot of time speaking about miserable comforters. What do miserable comforters look like? Yeah, this could be a whole episode on its own, so I will try to move quickly here. In the book, I go through what I call the five A's of miserable comforters, so I'll run through those and then just give some overall thoughts at the end.

But the first one is accusation. We're all pretty familiar with this because this is what Job's comforters primarily did.

So, this is when people communicate to the sufferer that their suffering must be directly correlated to their own personal sin. or it can also be when they admonish the sufferer for not responding to their suffering in the way that the miserable comforter deems most appropriate or godly. The second response is speaking aphorisms, and this involves using. Kind of almost sound bites of scripture verses, particularly the imperatives. In an attempt to try to maybe solve everything immediately for the sufferer?

Or maybe even to try to guilt or force them into responding the way that the miserable comforter is most comfortable with.

So, what we see here is instead of following God's command to weep with those who weep, miserable comforters speaking aphorisms almost try to force weeping sufferers to prematurely rejoice. And this can come from good motives or bad motives, but either way, it wounds sufferers and it really is a failure to love as God would have us love others. Avoidance, that's when people who are aware on some level of a sufferer's plight kind of distance themselves, maybe either due to their own selfishness or misplaced priorities, or maybe they're afraid of what walking with a sufferer for the long haul is going to mean for their own lives and schedules and emotions. And abandonment is kind of the fully grown fruit of that avoidance, we could say. It's where people eventually just cut off their relationship and stop communicating with the sufferer entirely.

And then last we have apathy. And that's where people just refuse for whatever reason to truly enter into the grief and pain of another person and come alongside them in ways that would be life-giving and sustaining. It's when they know maybe the needs that this person has for fellowship and friendship, or maybe for practical help, but they kind of just go on with their lives. And when I think about scripture, I think this is pictured really graphically and disturbingly in the parable of the Good Samaritan, where the priest and the Levite, who are the ones that we would expect to have the most godly response in that scenario. Actually, they show themselves to least represent the heart and will of God through their inaction and their refusal to help.

So, those are the five A's, but overall, I think we could also say that a miserable comforter is a miserable comforter when they prioritize something other than giving comfort and help. or when they think that their job is to stop a sufferer from experiencing negative emotions or speaking honestly about how they're feeling in their pain. And I think a lot of times miserable comforters Have a hard time handling unresolved ongoing suffering, or maybe they're not comfortable with tension and mystery in the Christian life.

So it's almost as though they try to drag sufferers from point A to point B, not so much for the sufferer's sake, but because of their own discomfort, fear, selfishness, or flawed theology. What would you say to someone that listening to you now, or perhaps when they read this book? they realize, oh, I've been a miserable comforter. Mm. Repent as we're all doing all of our lives.

I I think that sometimes, for whatever reason, when we think about the big ways that we need to grow and be sanctified, for some reason, I don't think we think about. How we love hurting people is one of the most important things we need to grow in to grow in Christ. And this too is a lifelong process. We'll always be learning how to do it better. But yeah, to anyone who would just honestly look at themselves and feel as though they've fallen short, repent.

And we all learn how to do better once we learn the ways that we've been less than helpful. And we've all been less than helpful with sufferers. I've been less than helpful with sufferers. This is all of us. It is all of us.

I was surprised how many times reading this book, I'd stop and think, that was me. I've said that. I've thought that. I've done that.

Well, back to those who are suffering. How can suffering impact our view of God and our relationship with Him? There are many ways. I'll just list a few that I know were huge for me and I know have been big for other people as well. I think a big one, maybe even the main one, is that God loves us and is good to us and is really for us.

I think it's really easy for us to reason from a human perspective that we'd never let anyone that we love face horrific suffering if it were in our power to stop it.

So, if we know that God does have the power to shield us from the horrors of life and He doesn't, we can start to doubt or at least question His love and His goodness. I think another thing that's related is our belief that God is our protector and that we're safe in Him can be shaken. When we've never really experienced any kind of suffering that's traumatic in nature, it's easy to find comfort in the Psalms and believe that God is our protector. But then when he does allow those horrendous things to happen that leave us feeling really vulnerable and helpless in a scary world. Reading the Psalms can almost sometimes start to make us feel worse because, at first glance, they can seem like broken promises of protection.

I think we can also start doubting whether we actually belong to God. I know I started to wonder: am I maybe self-deceived and I'm not even saved? Or maybe there's some hidden sin or some area where I need to grow that if I could just figure it out. Maybe the affliction would ease up. And I think another one Is we can also start to doubt our dignity and value to God and to others, especially when our suffering limits us from contributing much in the church or in society, or when we're ignored or abandoned by others.

So we can start to feel a lot of shame or dehumanization and feel worthless to God or to others if we're kind of basing our value on the things we can do and our output and our performance. I've spent a lot of time thinking about The negative aspects of social media, technology in today's age, and with Ligonier's always ready events, had opportunities to talk with young people about how they use technology. I'm curious how you see the negative side of social media, especially as it relates to those who are experiencing comprehensive and chronic suffering. Yeah, that's an interesting question. I don't think I'd say that the negative impact is categorically different for those experiencing comprehensive and chronic suffering than it is for the average person.

I would probably say I think the difference is more in terms of degree than kind.

So since people experiencing comprehensive and chronic suffering Usually experience fewer of the temporal blessings of life than the average person. It's like everything they see on social media just seems to scream at them and remind them of just how much they're being deprived of and how different their life is from the average person. I would also say on the flip side, though, as someone who's experienced this kind of suffering, in some ways social media has also been a profound lifeline to me, especially for those who are homebound or partially homebound and their friends or churches really aren't caring for them in the ways that they should be. We can be really alone, and sometimes the only sense of community we can find is online. And it should not be this way at all.

And one of my deepest burdens is to try to help the church do better in coming alongside those facing comprehensive and chronic suffering or chronic illness and pain. But sadly, social media in some cases is meeting needs that the sufferer's local church and embodied relationships aren't meeting. You mention that you were jostled by Jesus' response to Peter at the end of John's Gospel. Can you tell listeners more about that? One of my favorite things to do when reading through the Gospels is to read with a piece of paper covering the next line.

And every time someone asks Jesus a question, I think about how I would answer it, given everything that I know about Scripture, and then I look at how Jesus answers it. And nine times out of 10, he answers in a way I never would have thought or expected. And I think his response to Peter at the end of John's Gospel is similar.

So Peter's just been told that he's going to die a martyr's death, and so he asks Jesus what's going to happen to John. And we might expect that Jesus just would have answered Peter and told him about what would happen to John as well, but he didn't. He just says, if it's my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me. And I think at first glance, at least for me, it's tempting to think that Jesus' response is maybe a little bit rude or mean, but we know that Jesus is full of compassion and love for his people, so it can't be that.

And I think what's happening here is Jesus is trying to lead Peter down the most life-giving path. And trying to compare what God is doing in my life to the life of one of his other children is rarely a life-giving path. And that's hard for me because I'm a person who loves having answers to my questions. But I think that what Jesus is showing us here is that what's even more important than having answers or looking around and trying to analyze and make sense of everything around us is to simply direct our gaze back to Christ Himself and to follow Him. Christians speak a lot about reading the Bible, prayer, being thankful, various topics.

But we don't often hear Christians speak of lament. How is lament an important piece of living with suffering? I think that lament is faith's way of connecting to God in pain.

So, we don't connect to God only in our joy or in our thanksgiving. We also connect to Him in our mourning and our grief. And so if you think about it, a biblical lament is really a necessary component of life in a fallen world. Anything else would be inauthentic or even emotionally immature. Stoicism isn't godliness, and emotions aren't sinful.

So, all of that to say, I think lament is important because it's a means by which God sustains our faith and our communion with Him. even while we're experiencing a lot of grief and pain and confusion. And in the body of Christ, we're not only to lament for our own life privately, we do that of course, but in addition to that, we're also to lament with and for brothers and sisters in the body of Christ, both privately and corporately. And that piece is often missing in modern Christianity. Carrie, knowing just the vast listenership we have with Renewing Your Mind here in the United States, but also around the world, it's very likely that not only would a number of our listeners be going through a season of suffering right now.

It's very likely that many of them are experiencing comprehensive and chronic. Suffering What encouragement do you have? For sufferers. Yeah, two things. First, I would say that you are not alone in the ultimate sense.

even if your friends or family or church have neglected you or abandoned you, the Lord is with you, even if it feels like He's forsaken you and you can't at all sense the light of His presence. And even if you don't know anyone else with a story or suffering like yours in your immediate community or your sphere of relationships, just know that there are other saints throughout history and throughout the world who have suffered like you.

So you are not alone. And then second, I would just remind you that your suffering does have an expiration date. Even if it lasts for the rest of your earthly life, this is still only the middle of your story, and there is a glorious and happy ending for everyone who is in Christ. Or, maybe to be a little bit more precise, I should say instead, there is a glorious and happy, never-ending future with the triune God and with his people.

So don't give up. Amen.

Well, Carrie, before we go, may I ask: has anything changed in your situation since you wrote this book? A lot of things have stayed the same. There are some things that have gotten worse. There are some things that have gotten better. And a lot has stayed the same.

I did just a few weeks ago get married.

So that's a pretty big change to life. It is. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you.

But yeah, for anyone who's curious, my story is not one that has resolved and I've moved on. I still continue to live with a lot of these challenges and expect that I will until the Lord calls me home.

Well, Carrie, thank you again for writing this book. I found it immensely helpful. I've already begun recommending it to people, and as I mentioned earlier, texting, emailing excerpts from the book as well.

So thank you again for writing Limping Heavenward. Thank you, Nathan.

Well, if you'd like a copy of Carrie Hahn's new book, Limping Heavenward, Living by Faith in Comprehensive and Chronic Suffering, we'll send you a copy to thank you for your donation in support of Renewing Your Mind at renewingyourmind.org or when you call us at 800-435-4343. Chris Larson, our president and CEO at Ligonier, described this book as biblically and theologically grounded. And he said that this is a book for those who need encouragement to keep going when everything hurts and hope seems remote. This is a one-day offer and while supplies last.

So respond now at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes. Does your family practice family worship? Do you struggle with it? Or perhaps you're not sure where to begin?

Next week, Jason Halopoulos will join us to remind us that we were created for worship. and to discuss both family and private worship.

So be sure to join us beginning Monday here on Renewing Your Mind.