It is so strange how we look for answers to distressing complexities, but sometimes, maybe often, when the answer arrives, it brings a time of deep sorrow. This current season of distressing complexity in my own life has done just that. We have been searching for an answer to the mysterious health decline and regression in the daily living of our daughter Elle. The answer arrived on Friday, July 11: Down Syndrome Regression Disorder (DSRD). While this is one of the diagnoses I have been querying for years, to receive the news from an experienced Doctor that Elle has 7 of the 8 criteria and lands in the category of a probable diagnosis of DSRD was hard. This is the answer to 6 years of searching . . . and while I knew it likely was the answer, it is not the one I wanted. I was hoping for an answer that would provide a solution, not just an explanation… those are the hard answers to accept.
I’m a counsellor, and I have the privilege of hearing many distressing complexities of individuals’ lives. The understanding that comes with identifying the cause of the distress, helps us feel validated in our pain. This understanding, however, can also bring deep sorrow, because the reality of sin and disease in our pervasively fallen world, becomes so close and personal. The true reach of our own sovereignty comes into focus in moments like these. We cannot manifest solutions to the problems of our lives; neither prayers of faith nor fervently held positive beliefs will succeed in bringing about the solutions we desire. We are not gods, and therefore, we face the limits of our power.
Suffering outside of our control – sickness, disease, the evil behaviour of others, death, recession (to name a few)- does this. I do not have control over what is going on in my daughter’s immune system, nor do I have the power to heal her. There are clinical trials that we can apply for. We can pray that she gets access to the treatments that are being tested, but I don’t have the power to ensure she gets in. And if she gets in, I don’t have the power to ensure her body and brain respond to the treatment.
What do you do when you receive an answer to your distressing complexity, and the answer is, “you can’t make it better”? If you’re like me, you face the initial shock of reality – there is no magical answer that will make the suffering dissipate – and then you curl up and let the deep sorrow wash over you as you grieve the ugly, heart-wrenching truth that this world is not as it should be.
Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,
for in you my soul takes refuge;
in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,
till the storms of destruction pass by.
Psalm 57:1
And, in the midst of your raw pain, you cry out to God, asking Him to help you trust. You need a God who is in control. A God who is powerful enough to help you in your time of need. I need this God.
I cry out to God Most High,
to God who fulfills his purpose for me.
He will send from heaven and save me;
he will put to shame him who tramples on me. Selah
God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness!
Psalm 57:2-3
We cry out to God, and we turn to Him in trust. God knows the intricacies of your distressing complexity, and He is at work, weaving something purposeful (Romans 8:26-28). He knows the pain it causes you. He cares and offers His comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3-10).
Join me in lifting our cries to the One true God . . . If He is trustworthy and powerful enough to save us from eternal damnation, then He is certainly powerful enough to help us in the midst of great suffering.
Jodi Adrian is a biblical counsellor, based in North Vancouver, British Columbia. As a woman and a mother of four daughters, Jodi knows intimately the issues which invade the hearts and minds of women. God has also blessed Jodi and her husband with over 22 years of living with their daughter, who has Down syndrome. Jodi works with children, youth, and adults, and counts it a privilege to help individuals navigate difficult relationships, including abuse. She has also been pushed in her 31-year marriage to seek to understand more of what God intends for us in a relationship.
