The Role of Suffering in Community Resilience

A story of change rooted solely in human progress is an incomplete narrative. You only have to look at human history to see that merely living longer, accumulating more stuff, removing opposition and expanding territory do not bring lasting flourishing.

The deeper reason for its incompleteness lies in its inconsistencies. Do we have agency and dominion or not?

To say "yes" only in the absense of suffering sounds like bad news for the human experience. We will suffer. But we can steward that too.

You have agency in your ache. Suffering too is subject to our care toward community resilience.

Let's be on the same page right out of the gate: You feel powerless in suffering, what I am calling ache. Agency feels like the furthest truth in the moment of realized stress in any form or function of that word.

In the most simplest of terms, stress is "a nonspecific response of the body to any demand made upon it."

So, in one sense of the word, our bodies are made for this. Just as our body has neurobiological impulses to name when we lack water (thirst) or food (hunger), it is wired to name when our bodies divert from harmony or homeostasis as neurobiologists would coin it.

And yet, stress has a profound ability to isolate, individualize and inebriate in ways that mere acute hunger or thirst never could. (Chronic thirst or hunger would be a stress response that has a more traumatic impact as the body builds up an anticipation for not having enough in the form of malnutrition or abuse.)

A real-life fable on ache

In February, my family trekked on a camping trip with our church community to north Georgia. We went for an "up the mountain" experience while our "down in the valley" realities followed along in the form of our children.

For those of you who are parents, you understand: There is a trip. And there is a vacation.

A vacation is a pause on all the things you face in reality. A trip contains all the everyday moments, just not at home.

This was a trip.

The first night, many of us parents stayed up late. Call it reliving our adolescents. Call it forming community. Call it camaraderie in a moment of respite from parental joys and duties.

Four hours after I went to bed, our oldest woke up missing his stuffie. An hour after that — during which I couldn't fall back asleep on my bunk bed — he awoke again with a bloody nose. I guess those four hours were my sleep for the night.

Now, in that moment, I will be honest. I was peeved.

Why can't I just have community? Why can't I just connect around games and snacks as the life-giving form of self-care and relating that is part of what makes me human?

This was my self-talk. My isolating, individualizing, numbing fixation on how I was wronged from this camping trip on day one.

The reality was, I received two hours more of sleep than some of our neighbors whose children stirred at 2:30 a.m., all parties unable to ever return to sleep. We all stepped out of our sleepless cabins with groggy eyes and coffee in-hand, finding a form of solidarity.

You would think I found solace in sharing my ache, but I had more lessons to learn.

Day two ends with my renewed hopes for games and community, only to have our youngest cry out in a sudden fit of distress, followed by the telltale grunts of vomiting.

No games again as I dutifully slip in to bed knowing full-well I will regret getting an hour of sleep if this turns into being a bout of the norovirus.

Why me? Why us? God, you invited us to this mountain for memories and making community, and I have found myself cleaning messes of bloodied-sheets and sick-soaked clothing. Where are you?

You would maybe have some empathy for me at this point in my sense of isolation. But let's fill in some context. What I have not shared is that earlier in the day, we made space for friends whose daughter unexpectedly developed a 103.9 degree fever. Instead of the husband building community during naptime by watching an Atlanta United game with fellow fans, he commuted to the nearest medical facility in rural Georgia. Four hours of waiting and the best-yet-worst diagnosis: Just viral; drink plenty of electrolytes.

I felt for them. Empathized. Prayed. Yet still forgot them in my own ache.

Lesson learned? Not quite.

On day three, as I have wrestled and processed through finding joys even in the ordinary pains, our group of closest friends pause in the hustle of clean-up to take a photo memorializing our outing.

Seconds before the photos begin snapping, our oldest decides he wants to take the photo further up the hill. I deny him this option, met with a picturesquely-honest portrait:

God, I fume. I can't even have a capture of any semblance of normalcy. Everyone else is standing normally with their kids smiling and cooperating.

My inner dialogue continues as I look at my son, disgusted for the ways even this. Even this. Is taken away over the weekend.

Later that evening, our group shares the photo all commented with

Love it!!! 😍

and

Love love love it!

As I see these words come in, I think. Sure, for the rest of you. Not me. Then I pull up the photo.

This is life!! And I was too isolated, individualized and numb to see I was not alone.

The physiology of ache

This experience of isolation, individualization and inebriation — it is not limited to me. In fact, I would imagine you have similar stories from your own library of The Human Experience.

There is a physiological explanation for this tunneling of vision. Upon threat to the body, the release of hormones like cortisol and adrenaline focus your body's attention to the pain point. From bloodflow to sensory input. This threat might literally be a bear, but it can also be four hours of sleep, a vomiting toddler, or a sleep-deprived and hangry child.

Not only that, your amygdala focuses on the source of fear, diverting not only your physical awareness of other things around you but a sense of emotional isolation.

Numbing is not how everyone responds to stress; it is for me. For others, it manifests not as an inebriated apathy but a drunken-like aggression or frenzied activity or an illogical acquiescence.

Numbing might not be an actual turning to a substance like alcohol or drugs. It can be a rumination on that point of pain at the neglect of things that are lovely and good and kind. Frenzied activity might be a doomscrolling session or shopping spree or new zip code. Aggression might be a social media rant to get a few commiserated likes. Acquiescence might be the balm to cognitive dissonance in the form of justifying harmful actions by an institution because of a dependence on its values and beliefs.

So, what are steps to take in reclaiming agency in your ache?

Start by breathing.

The first step to reframing ache

There is this moment after the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth where his disciples are huddled in the upper room. Afraid. And for right reasons. The one they followed as their teacher, rabbi and friend. The one with whom they began to actualize hope — not only spiritually as the coming Messiah but as an ethnic redeemer and political savior — was dead.

There have been rumblings that some, in particular Mary of Magdala, have seen Jesus alive again. But naturally so, the disciples are too hesitant, numb or confused to re-ascribe hope.

Suddenly, Jesus appears to them with these words:

"Peace to you. Just as the Father sent me, I send you." Then he took a deep breath and breathed into them. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” he said. John 20v21-22, The Message

In a beautiful moment of recreation, Jesus breathes. Like the moment of humanity's beginnings with the breath of life in the Garden, God breathes life into a fearful room.

Breath is inseparable from creation, from God himself. In both ancient Hebrew and Greek thought, breath was synonymous with life and spirit, often as an act of imparting life and spirit.

Modern science parallels these thoughts, seeing the power of intentional breathing to impart renewed life and empowerment. One such technique is box breathing: breathing in for four seconds, holding for four seconds, breathing out for four seconds, and holding for four seconds.

I enjoy doing this and upon holding my breath after an inhale will silently pray, "Father, Son, Spirit," and upon holding my exhale conclude, "Here I am."

You can incorporate psalms or Jesus' own prayers as a way to meditate on Scripture while calming your body.

As Tyler Staton writes,

This side of the serpent's deception, we do not get a choice in our suffering as God works to re-create the world in his image. We do, however, get to choose what our suffering does to us. The Familiar Stranger, p179

So, what can we allow ache to do to us? How can we leverage suffering to grow community resilience?

I see agency in ache can counter isolation with community, individualization with capacity, and inebriation with compassion.

Your ache fosters community

To name your pain invites empathy. Now, we know that naming pain can bring disregard, dismission or denigration. Naming your pain is a vulnerable risk.

Making space for safety and inclusion are prerequesites, but when those are there, naming your ache fosters community.

By naming your pain, you actually lessen the activity of your amygdala. Those who listen to what you name activate mirror neurons to connect to your feelings and experiences. Together, you can co-regulate.

Shared ache also powerfully breaks down social barriers and can strengthen bonds across apparent divides. For our neighbors in Atlanta, this can look like people of different religious and ethnic backgrounds supporting one another around the pain of caring for children on the autism spectrum.

Paul of Tarsus would say this is at the root of Christian community:

The Messiah has made things up between us so that we’re now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance. He repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped. Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody. Ephesians 2v14-15, The Message

The fresh start is the gracious and radical 180 degree turn from the common pain point of the breakdown of human experience, dead and disintegrated, to whole and harmonious in Jesus the Messiah.

Jesus would say,

Do you finally believe? In fact, you’re about to make a run for it—saving your own skins and abandoning me. But I’m not abandoned. The Father is with me. I’ve told you all this so that trusting me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace. In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world. John 16v31-33, The Message

Remember Jesus' disciples hiding in fear? Before that, Jesus told them this would happen. Yet, he named there was courage in knowing life includes hardships and that Jesus walked through them already.

They lost that courage. Jesus did not. He maintained community as they isolated, stirring up courage again as he showed them scarred hands and feet. He showed them the redemption possible in suffering, not without scars, but with support. So that trusting me, you will be unshakable and assured. Not painless. Not fearful. But unshakable. Steadfast.

Jesus is our model for what it looks like to walk through pain and then invite community to share in difficulties and sufferings.

Your ache finds capacity

There are shared experiences waiting to be unearthed and shared.

We have colleagues in West Africa who shared of this one community's pain point around children being harmed in open cooking fires. Under layers of division and animosity toward clans within the community existed latent resources. Through the restoration of community naming this common pain point, forgiveness gave way to the naming and sharing of collective knowledge around how to minimize cooking fire accidents through the creation of clay ovens.

The collective learning of our past and forged learnings in present-day crises can give way to generational resourcing. Additionally, as resources are found in communities that support one another, there grows an organic network of support.

Dr. Becky Kennedy would call this space of dissonance, seeing what we do not know and naming what we want to be true, a Learning Space. She explains:

Being resilient doesn't feel resilient at all. It feels so messy. Another way of thinking about it is we also have "not knowing" and "knowing." The space between not knowing something and knowing something is really painful, especially if you fashioned yourself to be someone who's academically talented [or expected to not have whatever your experienced pain point between where you are and what is possible]. Because then it almost feels like your academic success or your identity as a smart person is tied to knowing. When you're in the space of that [draws out a wave line between "Not Knowing" and "Knowing], it's really to want to exit something [points midway through the wave line]. So, this has a name in my mind, right, it's called the "Learning Space." This is actually what learning, no matter what you're learning — something on the job, something from puzzles, learning to read: You don't know how to do it; you want to know how to do it. [Points between "Not Knowing" and "Knowing." And what I think is really empowering to know is the Learning Space has one feeling associated with it. Frustration. That's literally how learning feels. And if you think about that, then frustration becomes this actually, like, almost amazing thing you can learn to love, even though it's painful, because this is actually a sign that I'm learning. Whenever you're frustrated, it literally means you're somewhere in the Learning Space. And why frustration tolerance is so important is because people think that resilience, and success, comes from getting to "knowing" as soon as possible. They're wrong. Resilience and success come from the length of time you can just tolerate being in this space. The longer you can tolerate being here, the more you will ride [this wave of learning and frustration] and the more you will eventually come here [knowing]. "Learning to Fail" Lecture, Duke University, 12 February 2025

Paul describes this "Learning Space" as

There’s more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Romans 5v3-4, The Message

Paul would contextualize this frustration, this ache, as something spoken by all of creation, caught between where we are and where we know we can be as a cosmos:

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy. Romans 8v22-25, The Message

Our colleagues in West Africa sat in the ache and discovered a latent capacity to build clay ovens as they sat with the ebbs and flows of division, discord and distrust. If they, as Dr. Kennedy called it, exited early in that process, they would have stepped out of something uncomfortable but would have found themselves still depleted of the capacity to cook and care well.

Where do you find yourself in between? What discomfort and frustration serve as indicators for an invitation to press in rather than pull out? This requires humility, vulnerability, walking in the light as John of Bethsaida portrays such a posture.

Josh Nadeau writes that this Learning Space is not just an intellectual frustration or logical strength-training:

It's learning that to develop real skill or strength in life, to grow and to change, we need to admit our weaknesses and face them. We need to admit all the things we don't understand, and we learn by commitment and repetition; we learn by doing. We need help in mastery. We can't pretend our weaknesses away. We can't bluff our flaws into stability. We must confront them. We don't need to solve everything, not all at once. Room for Good Things to Run Wild, p29-30

In other words, it is embodied. This is the gathering Jesus intended, one where the observed ways of Jesus are treasured and retold, a "movement of friends learning to live free as they pass on freedom."

Your ache fuels compassion

Undergirding all this is the fuel to love. "Behold God beholding you...and smiling," said Anthony deMello.

In the full display of our shortcomings, our vices in response to these shortcomings, and a sliver of hope that this is not the final word in the narrative of our lives nor of the cosmos — exists a kind, gentle, resilient love. The love that asked where are you, the love that whispered take courage, the love that acquainted himself with sorrow.

Again, the intentional life of Jesus cannot be overlooked, and in it, the same invitation for all human beings shaped by him:

Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help. Hebrews 4V14-16, The Message

I find this truth of identification so starkly now as a parent. Think of a time you hopped on a plane and noticed a parent with a young toddler walking down the aisle, eyeing the seat next to, in front or behind you. Dread wells up. So much for a quiet space to read, catch up on that latest binge, or nod off to sleep. (Or was that just me?)

Now? With toddlers of my own, the child is a mere signpost to look in the eyes of the guardian with compassion.

Why? I know what they are feeling in my bones. I know they've booked a flight not on the convenience of price but on the best chance their child will somewhat cooperate, nap or not make a scene. They have no expectations to read, watch or escape. They just hope they might have enough time to take a sip of that free beverage before it somersaults off the tray table just kicked by their tantruming toddler over the growing reality that they cannot leave their seat for the next 60, 120, 300 minutes.

"There's an inherent solidarity in suffering that draws compassion to the surface," Staton writes.

Until you connect with the basic human experience, your eyes have trouble leaving yourself. That can be as simple as diverted expectations on an airplane to airwave politics around the latest heated debate. Can you enter their shoes, see from their eyes, and find the hope they are clinging to, the good they long for, the pangs of pregnant expectation?

It might start with feeling your own aches again.

Ache has a way of finding home

Remember this idea that our bodies have a state of normalcy? Call it homeostasis. Call it the day-to-day. Stress indicates a departure from that routine. The body does not have enough energy. Cue hunger in response to this “stress.” The body does not have enough blood volume. Trigger thirst.

What is ache at that soul-level, expectation to return?

C.S. Lewis describes it like

The mold in which a key is made would be a strange thing, if you had never seen a key: and the key itself a strange thing if you had never seen a lock. Your soul has a curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the divine substance, or a key to unlock one of the doors in the house with many mansions. The Problem of Pain, p145

Jesus puts it this way

Blessed [joyful, nourished by God’s goodness] are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness [those who actively seek right standing with God], for they will be [completely] satisfied. Matthew 5v6, Amplified Bible

Without acknowledging ache, we cannot have a hunger and thirst for righteousness, a response to the fallout from relational harmony that God intends.

Without ache, I do not think we can embody authentic community, aware of our limits on caring well. Otherwise, we have a meeting of acquaintances rather than a safe space for brothers and sisters and attended-to-angels.

Without ache, I do not think we can embody meaningful work, that excels in all its forms of play and production, hedging shrubs and hedging funds, missions and mothering, fathering and fostering. Otherwise, we have hierarchies of value that lead to plenty of tended crowns without tended sheep.

Without ache, I do not think we can embody ourselves, honoring the dirt from which we came, the genetics from which were passed down, the structures of systems both bodily and governed by which we reside. Otherwise, we wanderlust until we are nothing but ghosts telling tales and corpses too far gone to love.

As Jason Sheppard writes

Meeting needs is predicated on a culture and a context where needs are shared openly with one another, so that needs can be prayed for, and needs can be met within that context. A Church of House Churches, p29

Our team at the Resilient Communities Center strives to facilitate learning communities for us to choose to name our pain points and speak words of grace and belonging over them. In one of our community building exercises, we invite the room to glance over a table of over 40 different pages and choose one image that in their gut, in the fiber of their soul, they identify as an embodied pain point, an obstacle in their lives. Do you know what I have never found when we finish that exercise? Someone empty-handed.

We all have pain points, and the solidarity in naming allows us to connect this pain point to a larger relational framework that helps lessen the tunnel vision always existing in some capacity in ourselves and our immediate enclave of relationships. Then, in love, with hope, we take courage and lean into these frustrations and set defiant goals. Not naively. Not audaciously. Just simple steps that say we believe life comes after death and strength after weakness.

We run in-person spaces for your circle of influence as well as virtual communities of practice. Learn more about these opportunities and connect with one of our facilitators.

Join us April 16 at 12 p.m. EDT for a 60-minute workshop on embodied practices to begin sitting with discomfort.

Let's courageously take that first step. Together.