Facing Everest - When the distance between you feels impossible.

Inevitably, you and/or your partner will cause some degree of damage to your relationship. The ensuing injury will compromise the security and safety in your relationship and will need attention and healing.  To address undercurrents, conflict or a charged, emotional issue, there will need to be communication that furthers healing rather than adds damage. To have unguarded, honest and non-defensive communication, security and safety must be re-established in your relationship.  

Additionally, our words, tone and meaning come from deep places and the substance of that deeper place is buoyant.   In the deeper places reside our true thoughts, feelings and beliefs, many of them we aren’t always fully conscious of until they spill out, for better or worse, in our communication.  It's important to explore what is underneath our words if we hope to give Christ access to the parts of us that hurt others.

The question for any couple is, “How can we communicate when we feel hurt and talking makes it worse?  If feels impossible to open up.”   Consider setting up base camp.

Base Camp

Every year, hundreds of alpinists travel to Nepal to climb Mt. Everest.  A non-negotiable piece to their journey is setting up base camp at the base of Everest.  In base camp, they store supplies, confer with teammates, assess dangers and acclimatize in order to survive the oxygen starved death zone near the summit.  After weeks of preparations, first at home and then in camp, they take on the grueling, painful, death defying challenge of summiting Everest.  The crisis you are addressing (or averting) is your Everest and the work you have before you will require grit, will be painful and, at times, it will be terrifying.  Understandably, many turn back before the summit and before resolving conflict but, avoiding this relational climb will come at a great cost.  If you have read this far, chances are you are looking at the summit and realize there’s no way around this climb if you want to love well and have a chance to look like Christ to your loved ones and the world you have been planted in.  The initial, critical work before you, begins at home, in private and can't happen without essential preparations.

Before setting up base camp, privately:

1. Pull away from distractions.

2. Ask God to give sight where you are blind, freedom where you are captive and the courage to be honest about what lies within you.  

3. Address what has happened (acknowledge the damage and fully experience the difficult emotions).

4. Name and grieve unmet desires and longings in your relationship.

5. Look for and lay down your pride and reach for humility.

6. Acknowledge this is actually impossible and that you will need a humble dependence on Christ.

In base camp, you will:

1. Establish support (your relationship with God, journaling, reading scripture, talking with a mentor and/or therapist and processing with a good friend or small group are a few.)

2. Look for your part or responsibility (Abuse/Intimate Partner Violence is an exception and operates from a different set of rules).

   1. If your partner has admitted to an affair, a violation of trust or an abandonment of your vows, this may seem like a cruel suggestion.  Let’s clarify what is and is not your responsibility.  What is not your responsibility is:

      1. Your partners mistreatment

      2. Your partner's feelings

      3. Unavoidable mistakes

      4. Your partners choices

      5. Life circumstances that were no one's fault (illness, accidents, death, natural disasters, etc.)

Repairing a rift in a relationship requires healing where there is damage.  This is big and you might feel in over your head. Feeling at a loss can be a good place to set aside self-effort and depend on Christ.  With man this healing work is impossible but with God, this difficult and merciful work is possible.  Searching out where you are in the wrong is the grueling (and freeing) preparation before you.  We can only change ourselves.  Better said for the believer is we want redemptive transformation that heals and frees us rather than change that might be temporary and motivated by reasons that don’t last.  This is a divine work and the context is personal to each of us.  It is not possible to change another person.  Change that is redemptive and transforms is God’s work.  I may play a role in the context and I can desire change in another person but I cannot maneuver, control, pressure or demand it. 

If both people are searching for their part and coming to the other wanting to take full responsibility for what is theirs, you are ready to climb your Everest.  Your job is to look for your part even if all you can see is 5%.  Find your 5% and camp there.  Your base of operations will be the wedge of the pie that is your part, your responsibility.  This is where you return and this is where you regroup.  

If base camp has been established for each partner, when it is safe enough you may be invited to explore each other's camp.  She may feel safe enough to say,  "How else have I hurt you?" He may find the courage to ask about other ways he's let you down.  Anger, blame and resentment have a chance to be replaced with a tender, humble longing for restored relationship.

If each partner is committed to not blaming but taking responsibility for whatever they can and apologizing from the heart as many times as it takes, there's a chance the safety and security you need to communicate well will be re-established and the work of healing the damage and distance can begin.

After you name your part, like a beast, repair damage through healing apologies. Read on in Part 2 - Facing Everest - Healing Apologies.

Grieving Can Be Lonely

My friend lost her husband of 37 years recently.  It feels like an assault to her soul.  Death was not a part of the original plan and something, everything feels completely wrong in her life.  Her husband was the life of the party, everyone’s best friend and the picture of a humble, kind servant.  When he showed up he made everything more fun.  His clever sense of humor was disarming and his determination to see, really see others was steady.  For the last 10 years and more he took her to lunch nearly every day, brought his strong, listening heart, turned it to her and loved her. 

My friend has a serious temperament, is socially shy and hesitant in relationships and now he is gone.  “It was all about him,” is her conclusion to how friends and family felt when they come to visit and now she feels irrelevant, lonely and lost on this new path.  Her losses are deep and far reaching.  Each day reveals yet more to grieve and she wonders when it will get better.  She wonders if it will. 

In Psalm 42, the psalmist grieves and I think of my friend.

My heart is breaking

    as I remember how it used to be:

I walked among the crowds of worshipers,

    leading a great procession to the house of God,

singing for joy and giving thanks

    amid the sound of a great celebration!

5 Why am I discouraged?

    Why is my heart so sad?

I will put my hope in God!

    I will praise him again—

    my Savior and 6 my God!

He has put his hope in God and decides to praise him again.  This seems like a good move.  His friends might feel relieved and assume things will be looking up.  Yet, this is not what happens. 

Now I am deeply discouraged,

    but I will remember you—

even from distant Mount Hermon, the source of the Jordan,

    from the land of Mount Mizar.

7 I hear the tumult of the raging seas

    as your waves and surging tides sweep over me.

8 But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me,

    and through each night I sing his songs,

    praying to God who gives me life.

He is honest. He put his hope in God and yet his discouragement deepened, the seas rage and tides sweep over him.  Rather than being an event with a beginning and end, his discouragement and sadness ebbs and flows.  From this place of broken dependence on the God he looks to for hope, he experiences his unfailing love, can sing and find relationship with a God who gives his aching heart life.   And still there is more to grieve. 

9 “O God my rock,” I cry,

    “Why have you forgotten me?

Why must I wander around in grief,

    oppressed by my enemies?”

10 Their taunts break my bones.

    They scoff, “Where is this God of yours?”

11 Why am I discouraged?

    Why is my heart so sad?

I will put my hope in God!

    I will praise him again—

    my Savior and my God!

Each day and again highlight the unpredictable and intricate rhythms of the human heart.  Discouragement, grief, pain is not simple and never easy.  The questions in this passage repeat and reveal the ongoing nature of our need.   His grief continues.  His hope is in God.  He feels alone.  He praises the God who loves him again.  His discouragement deepens and he remembers who God is.  He wanders around, finds life in God, wonders why and his heart breaks.  Again he hopes in God.  I see no inclined plane but rather a real human experiencing life in a fallen world.

Her husbands death will always feel inherently wrong, out of place.  It often gets worse before it gets better.  And we don’t know when better will come.   Thankfully, in the midst there is more.  Death is not the end of the story and grief can be met by hope.  But, my friend wonders how long her friends will stick by as she wanders around in the desert of grief.  Will they join her when they can?  Will they come back when she is angry and all she can do is question? 

My prayer for my friend is that there will be those who will find her in the desert and walk by her side.  I pray she will know their comforting (at times awkward?), patient presence because they know the journey ebbs and flows.  The psalmist says it well.  Grief and sadness are intertwined with the love, life and hope He wants for us.  We don’t know the exact path or timing.  I do know he doesn’t want us to walk it alone. 

Is There More?

have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. 1 Peter 1:22

Are you a church-goer?  If so, what keeps you going?  This week I had conversations with two people who wanted to feel more connected with their faith community.  I knew there was context and I inquired.  In both cases, they had experienced recoil when they revealed some of the struggle that was inside and emerging from the deep waters of their heart.  They both wanted to know how to feel and struggle less because they wanted to keep others comfortable and have a better chance at friendship and connection.  One friend was sure she was seen as the downer in the group.  I know her to be a thoughtful struggler with an inviting vulnerability.

I’ve heard this sadness before.  Sadly, I have likely been the cause of and have felt this loneliness at times in my own faith communities.  How does this happen with a group of people who, by and large, place such a high value on loving well?  People come together with the sincere hope of richly connecting with people they care about and yet, too often, we walk away with longings unmet.  And we are lonely.  Where does the train derail?  

My friend described a desire to talk about the meaningful, vulnerable, parts of her soul with long-time friends and wanted to inquire about theirs.  Yet, her efforts were met with a discomfort and a shift in their seat.  Inevitably, someone will joke or attempt to fix it saying what others are thinking (at least this is what my friend believes) and the opportunity is lost.   She wonders if there is a shared space for embracing the difficult mysteries and painful struggles of a life well-lived?  Could it be that we long for deep, meaningful connection yet it is the very thing that we fear?  To be known is to take a risk.  The risk is recoil from a trusted ear which can feel like rejection.  Rejection is painful.  On the flip side, I have felt the discomfort of a bared soul and my inadequacy to respond well.  The struggle of my friend inevitably touches on something within me.  I live in a world that is beyond my ability to control.  How well I engage that reality within me greatly affects how well I handle my friend’s realities.  

Years ago, there was a professional film-maker who attended our church.  He took on the filming and editing of 5 peoples stories (sometimes called testimonies).  Tom and I agreed to film a 5-minute video about the turbulent, early years of our marriage.  At that point we had been married 15 years (we will celebrate 30 this year!) and we were enjoying some brighter days. But, although I was convinced that telling the truth about our marriage was a good thing, I was hesitant.  What if we were misjudged?  What if we became known as “the couple with a bad marriage”?  What if people thought less of us?  

The opening sentence of our video was Tom saying, “Without Christ, Lisa and I would be divorced today.”  We went on to talk about the pain and disillusionment we experienced as we failed each other.  And with skill, the videographer pieced together a narrative that portrayed a couple who shouldn’t have made it but because of our relationship with God and His work in our lives, we did.

When the service was over, a woman I had known for many years said to me with a concerned look and pity, “I will pray for you.”  A torrent of responses flooded my mind and I must have looked dumb-founded, since I was.  I wanted to say, “But we’re doing better!  Wasn’t that clear?”  or “Certainly, you have had dark days in your marriage.”   In a stroke of grace, I found myself saying, “Thank you.” The truth is our marriage will always need prayer. I will be forever grateful our rocky beginning made that clear.  Thankfully, about four couples thanked us for telling their story as well.  Another wondered if she could show it to her husband because they were considering divorce.  I went from feeling alone and regretful to feeling embraced and humbled that God could use our story in some small way to encourage another.

Why did I feel such a disconnect from that first, well-meaning friend followed by the hope of meaningful connection with others?  I can't be sure what was going on inside her but I do know, there is a thirst in my soul for something that is beyond me.  There is a longing for relationship and purpose that leaves me vulnerable when I am willing to see it clearly.  As image-bearers we share this longing in common with others and it is what builds a bridge of connection.  Yet, sometimes I forget myself and my pride leads me to believe I have it figured out and I’ve got what it takes in and of myself.  From this misguided vantage point, I have no other view than one of looking down from a higher, more distant place onto those who actually know what is true-- that they don't.  The truth is neither does anyone else, really.

This week, my thoughtful, struggling friend was facing the same choices I have faced and face daily.  I can take a deep, discouraged sigh and look to numb or deny my God-given, deeply, relational orientation or live with a courageous integrity that admits there must be more. There is more.  We were created to live beyond loneliness and into relationship with God and others.  And there are others who are fellow strugglers, those who get it that we were meant for meaningful community.  We need each other. 

Do you wonder if there is more?  Join me in asking, what is the condition of my heart/soul?  From that place, can I see into, inquire and care about the state of my friends?  Am I willing to struggle with living in a sometimes painful, always imperfect world or am I intent on staying busy, smoothing it over and/or explaining it away?  These are the questions that breathe life into our search, our relationships and into our existence.  They will lead to deeper waters.  You may feel in over your head and at a loss to find land.  If so, you are in touch with your humanity and the greater question of where to find this life you seek?

-Lisa Branton, LMSW