Pain Patterns

Seven years ago I cowrote a musical with a friend who's also a Pastor and who also directed the workshop production of that musical. The concept of the show was mine and I wrote the first (rough draft) script and half of the songs. It was our second collaboration and it was, in a word (and the word of others) brilliant. It could play Broadway or just have a life of its own among drama companies whose vision and direction it fit. He announced to me shortly afterwards that he would be writing alone from now on. My name shows up on programs as the author of "additional music" which his is ever prominent as the creative genius behind the whole company.

Two years ago, after leading worship for 13 years, I was essentially muscled out of that job by a new Pastor in my church. He had (and still has) no one to replace me; his main reasoning was that I had done it long enough and he wanted a younger voice and "feel" to the ministry.

Last year and this, at my job as a software engineer heading up a very ambitious project, 3 of the 4 people (that is, everyone but me) left the company. We replaced one of those three, but that person is just getting up to speed, and we will not be replacing any more due to cuts.

Ok, these things are life, they happen. Yet their combined effect on my life has been pretty momentous. I tend to be a bitter, walking dark cloud, expecting the worst always and blaming "management" for everything that goes wrong. Good things happen in spite of leadership, not because of it.

I am a Christian as you might have gathered. I believe in servant leadership and expect it from those "over me" in the church. In business I just hope for management that knows what it takes to get a given job done. So, we can identify this pretty quickly as disappointment, unmet expectations, etc.

The "why" of all this (and there is more but I have no time) is a divine mystery, except in what I have come to love as an amazing redemptive Bible passage, making lemonade from lemons:

2 Cor 1:3-5 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

In that spirit, I want to offer some insights. Not that I am "over this", but to dig deeper into the mechanics of pain should serve to illumine what is going on for others, thereby providing the "comfort" of understanding as to why its so hard to overcome this kind of stuff.

To me, hurt is not really an issue unless it occurs in patterns. If I tried to swim three times and encountered a shark attack, a tsunami and an undertoe that nearly drowned me I would associate bad things with swimming, even if I had the musculature and endurance of a championship backstroker, say. In that case, it would be truly tragic if I walked away from swimming even though those were my experiences. And not just tragic for me, but for all those who would be "blessed" by my being who I was born to be.

One doesn't really need to be a person of faith to experience such patterns; though if one has faith it is possible to assign those patterns to God. "What is God trying to tell me?" is the query that persists. With or without faith, however, such patterns produce doubts as to what one is good at, or what is meant to do.

For me, this forces combat in my mind and emotions. Struggling through forgiveness, which is absolutely the first step, is an ongoing effort. But on the other side of that is a litany of doubt and vision/focus issues.

Just as there are patterns of hurt, there are also patterns of success, productivity and, well, happiness. I've learned to look at what I know I'm good at and what I've done in the past, not as a monument (really, all I need to finish becoming a fossil is to rest on any laurels), but as a set of building blocks in my life. I think everyone has these, and the process of overcoming pain pattern is to replace them with functional patterns (change the story you tell yourself), not because it feels better, but because it's the truth.

Another part of the coping process is to establish vision. This has proven tricky for me because often I get into the funk of trying to be un-, vowing to do his/her job better than he/she did without hurting people like he/she did, etc. This is a trap to avoid, because it doesn't encompass who one is. In my case, as with many people, my beef is with management, authority or people "over me". Though I may also become a leader, the patterns in their practice of leadership can have nothing to do with those in mine.

Vision is important because it establishes focus. Without it (as in my current state) we try to do everything and so, do nothing effectively. Even at age 52 (gasp), new things begin daily so I'm still learning and establishing personal guiding principles.

I read John Eldredge's Wild at Heart recently and liked it a lot. One of his lines I remembered was one of wisdom recalling past hurts. It's a common, destructive guy thing to say "it didn't matter", but he insisted it's more truly a guy thing to say "it mattered and it hurt". Otherwise we execute our hurt on those who have nothing to do with that we carry inside.

Anyway, though I'm not done stewing, I've seen enough to know that I need Jesus in my life and to apply his teaching and forgiveness. I've also seen enough to know I've been established in who I am, not what I've done for really knowing one's identity is basic to know one's calling.

Good things are happening and will continue.

Be blessed,

John