By Andrea Goebel
God’s Way
“It’s OK. Let them out; they’re healing tears,” my friend said as I attempted to stifle my emotions.
“I know.”
We were sitting at my kitchen table. She held my newborn as we looked out the windows at our husbands and older children playing in the snow. I had just been expressing my gratitude for my husband since our son was born, and I could not hold back my tears any longer.
I never liked the rollercoaster of emotions I experienced with the birth of each of our children. When our daughter was born, I felt overwhelmed by the enormity of my feelings. When our son was born, I thought if I kept busy enough, I wouldn’t feel them. With the birth of our third child, I felt a different perspective, and I recognized that my friend was right: these were healing tears. I just had to be willing to let myself cry to experience the peace of healing.
I was reminded of a song my older children loved when they were toddlers: “Going on a Bear Hunt.” In the song, the two main characters discuss the obstacles they face on their journey to the bear’s cave: tall grass, a river and mud. The characters discover that the only way to get past these obstacles is to go through them. They cannot bypass the challenges that stand in the way of their goal; they must confront them directly.
This song seems like a lesson for our own lives. We all face trials that test our endurance both physically and emotionally, and it can be tempting to give up when we feel overwhelmed by the enormity of it all. However, I am learning that the only way to heal, learn and grow from our experiences is to keep walking through them with God by our side.
The words in James 1:2-4 have strengthened and comforted me for many years during various struggles I have endured: “Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
We have to be willing to let ourselves experience the fullness of our circumstances in order to heal, learn and grow from them. We have to accept our lack of control and lean on God’s total control.
A wise person recently told me, “Just remember, hard doesn’t equal bad.” This is a lesson I am still learning, and it’s also something I want to teach my children. Life can push many burdens our way that are heartbreaking and exhausting, and we don’t want to endure them. It may be tempting to stifle our emotions so we don’t feel pain, or let up on our efforts so we aren’t as tired. However, when we do those things, we shortchange ourselves, and we never grow in our faith. When we lean on our faith, especially in our hard times, our trust in God’s promises grows, and we become stronger.
Once I accepted my postpartum emotions, I realized I didn’t need to judge myself for feeling out of control because I never was in control — God was. He would lead me through this trial, as he had so many before, as long as I trusted him to guide me.