To get around a roadblock, first you must admit it’s really there

By Mark A. Taylor

I was speaking with a friend about some health challenges our family is facing.

“When I look around, I see others whose situation is so much more difficult than this one,” I said. “There’s no crisis here; it’s just that things are different. I’m so glad the situation isn’t worse, because it could be.”

You might say such an approach is healthy, and even after considering what I’ll report here, I still believe it can be. Wallowing in regret or despair or an endless, unanswerable string of “if only” is not beneficial or productive.

But my friend challenged my positivity.

“Don’t cheat yourself out of acknowledging the difficulty brought by this situation,” she said. “Don’t minimize your family’s problem by searching for someone else’s that’s worse.”

A finger or a leg?

I knew immediately she was right. I’ve always said that cutting off my finger would be excruciating, even if your amputated leg hurt you worse. Your greater loss doesn’t negate my hurt, which I would still feel acutely. Yes, I’ve always said that, but have I always really believed it?

I was grumbling to a friend one day about my frustration with keeping pests off my roses and tomatoes. Finally, in what I’ve come to see as my pattern, I said, “But oh well, it’s a First World problem.” In other words, why complain about a couple of struggling tomato vines when people in so much of the world are starving?

“But we live in the First World!” he replied. And I think about his response then as I report the conversation I shared above. It would be silly, even wrong, to become undone if my backyard garden doesn’t thrive. But it could be unhealthy to pretend it didn’t matter to me.

The middle point

Perhaps this is just one more example of working to achieve balance, which I’ve written about before. The middle point between despair and denial is often difficult to pinpoint. Perhaps one word can be our goal for finding it. Truth. Acknowledge the truth. Don’t overstate or underestimate the real impact of what’s happening.

It may be terrible, but you’re still breathing, the world is still spinning, and it’s full of resources to help you. But that doesn’t mean today’s problem is easy to handle. Try to make an unblinking assessment of the facts. Then you’ll be ready to find steps for coping with them, including support you’ll need to maintain your equilibrium.

Acceptance and commitment

As it turns out, there’s a whole therapeutic field of study devoted to this approach. Called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), it helps diminish depression and anxiety for those who practice it. Elizabeth Bernstein reported about it this summer in The Wall Street Journal.

“When we practice acceptance,” she wrote, “and believe me, it does take practice—we don’t suppress our difficult emotions or bury them in a front of forced positivity. We don’t attempt to control the situation by trying to fix the unfixable. And we don’t fall down a rabbit hole of despair. Instead, we deal clearheadedly with our situation, and we remember that even in life’s toughest moments there is often some good, even if it’s simply a lesson to be learned.”

Read her whole article for descriptions of five strategies for practicing acceptance. Two that especially resonated with me:

• Distance yourself. Try giving yourself the advice you’d give a friend who came to you with your situation. “Psychologists call this Solomon’s Paradox,” she explained. “Our brains access different resources when we think about ourselves, versus when we think about others.”

• Reconnect with your values. Here is a world of possibility for the Christian.

—You love to serve? How can you serve in this situation?
—Praise and worship is important to you? Where can you find new worship music or other resources? How does worship help you take your focus off yourself?
—Christian fellowship gives you breath and life? What are some new or simpler ways you can connect with Christian friends?
—You believe the Bible? Read it! You may be surprised at how it speaks to your current situation.

Bernstein quoted Robyn D. Walser, an assistant clinical professor in psychology at the University of California: “Just because there are these super-wicked problems in the world does not mean you give up on what matters to you.”

Looking to God

I’m learning that what matters most to me is knowing that God is with me and responding to my circumstances in a way that may point others to him. If I insist that bad things are OK—I’ve got it under control!—I’m bringing attention to myself instead of him. If I become hopeless in the face of trouble, I undermine the faith of those who watch me crumble.

Instead, I’ll look to “the God, of all comfort,” “our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” He anticipated our difficulties in life, otherwise Scripture writers would not have been moved to make such declarations. The middle ground between despair and denial is the truth that God offers strength when we are weak.

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.  And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:26-28).

Embracing that truth and committing to act on it is the only path forward that makes sense to me—even when that road inevitably will contain a few ruts and rocks and even a dead end or two. I won’t deny the roadblocks; I’ll just expect them and try to trust God to help me find a way around each one.

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

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