Penning Our Pain

“In art, either as creators or as participators, we are helped to remember some of the glorious things we have forgotten, and some of the terrible things we are asked to endure, we who are children of God by adoption and grace.” Madeleine L’Engle     wordsworkwonders

Writing is therapy. Free and effective therapy. Whether we privately journal our way through life, or publicly rant about the political climate on a blog, writing is a way to process our internal chaos. I like the above quote from M’LE because it acknowledges that our omnipotent, good God allows us to experience and endure pain.

In America’s watered down version of Christianity, it’s an unpopular idea that bad things will happen to good people. And there’s no way that a good God would ordain such events, would he? But that pop-theology flies in the face of scripture. If you want just a wee bit of back up for that, check out the book of Job. Notice that God calls Job a righteous man . . . and then points him out to Satan, giving the fallen angel permission to wreak havoc on Job’s life as a test. Yeah . . . not exactly the prosperity gospel, is it?

So how does writing—and other forms of art—help us work through the pain that promises to make house calls . . . like the uninvited, whisker-faced aunt who stops by to slather a kiss on your face and borrow your restroom because she can’t make it home. Life sometimes stops to take a dump on you, doesn’t it? (I hate that expression, but my husband will be proud). And I’m talking circumstances that are beyond  impossible to “make lemonade” from because life, after all, handed you something a lot worse than lemons.

I’ll confess that I’ve never been one to keep a journal. I’ve tried and failed. The proof lies in the dozen or so dusty journals that burrow by my bed, gifts from well-meaning friends.  (I can’t throw them away because I always give journaling a shot—therefore each pretty little book has a few weeks worth of personal thoughts I might one day want to revisit).

I’m better at epiphanies in which a long string of circumstances come together and make sense in a light-bulb sort of moment. For instance, when my autistic son prepared to graduate high school, God graciously revealed the victories over the many, exhausting battles we had fought for most of his life. I had to sit down and process my emotions, and connect all the dots, right then and there. It was a very therapeutic exercise and when I get discouraged in the fray, I’ll go back and read the post to refresh my faith and courage.  If you are interested, you can read about it here.

While reading passages from Walking on Water to prepare for today’s blog, I received a similar post from the blog “Wordserve Water Cooler.” Author Karen Jordan wrote a thoughtful piece entitled “Frozen in Time: Writing and Healing.” She began her post with a poignant quote: “Healing … is change from a singular self, frozen in time by a moment of unspeakable experience, to a more fluid, more narratively able, more socially integrated self.” (Writing and Healing, Charles Anderson & Marian M. MacCurdy)

There’s a lot we could unpack in that sentence but it made me think of how the artistic process works in reverse. When we traverse the path of our pain writing our story in the pages of a book—or perhaps chisel it out of marble—we have now encapsulated that pain in that work of art. It becomes a personification of that thing, whatever it was, that broke our heart or left us bleeding, and allows others to take a look and understand, with a glance or a read, where we’ve been. Often it touches a similar experience in the onlooker, whispering that they’re not alone in their broken world.

If anything, our work helps us feel understood by others, even as the creative process helps us understand ourselves. What a joy and a victory that is! What a wonderful step towards freedom that can be affected from both sides of the creative process. Even if what we write is an entirely private matter, the exercise of investing ourselves in our craft still does its job: framing things with perspective and extending hope.

Of course, our art isn’t always about expressing the pain in our lives. Though that’s what I wanted to focus on here, there are certainly wonderful and good reasons to create! I hope each of us will find life filled with many lovely things that far outnumber the gut-wrenching moments.  As artists, we often don’t need any good reason to do what we love, do we? There’s joy in the affair of letting go and musing freely.

What motivates you the most? Pleasure or pain? I’d love to hear how you have found solace in your work.

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  1. I have never been consistent with journalling until this past year. I have approached it quite differently than ever before, writing down things other people have said that resonate with me. Then, I began writing my thoughts on those words, and then I began writing my thoughts on life, and now I write all sorts of things and often have 5 or6 pages written a day. Probably to the dismay of anyone who will read them in the future, in an effort to keep writing after filling up the journal I was given for my birthday, I picked up first, one I had gotten for my husband that has 3 or 4 pages of his writing in the beginning. When I filled that one up, I found one I started when my husband was in rehab that has 4 or 5 pages from 2011 in it, and just picked up on the next page. After years of telling people I don’t like to write in journals, I now will have to start hinting about how they would make great gifts.
    Writing has definitely helped me make sense of my dark providences lately, but I had to wait for the dust to settle a bit before I could even try to put it down on paper. I think it is like a dance to figure out when to write, and when to pause.

  2. I haven’t been able to successfully journal since I was…. 13. After reading this, I realize that I probably should think about writing down the last 5 years of my life, as some parts of it still live in the darkest corner of my mind and I don’t even like talking about it!

    1. Well, if you’re not ready…don’t force it! However, it may be a good way to process the pain and to see God’s fingerprints where you hadn’t notice them in the midst of it. At least we can be assured that our pain has a purpose, in Christ. God isn’t a sadist.

  3. I have found it true, that when we write about our darkest places and moments they lose their hold on us. Facing things that scare us, have hurt us, or even ripped us apart, cloaked in magic, fantasy, and fiction is very healing. For me, my work gives me a chance to step away, to fix wrongs, to do right, to make something dark have a point because God does that for us. He is in control and he brings light to the darkness. My creativity is a mirror of what he does all the time.

    1. I like that! Yes, we can right a lot of wrongs when we get to engineer the story 🙂 Of course, some people like to just kill everyone off as a means to problem solve…(JK!).

      Yes, it is amazing to step back and see what God is able to do with all of the pieces and all of our stumbles and fumbles. Love getting to have a taste of that through the writing process too!

      1. lol. Killing them off is a completely legitimate way to solve a problem…man, I’m glad I’m not God! I can only handle about three people in my head at once. He handles everyone ever born. Amazing!