The Comfort Zone Cave

"You see, sometimes God allows us to be uncomfortable."
"Oh?"
"Yes. Because it's good for us."

So my dear sister-friend, Sara, explained to me one day, impassioned by this truth she'd discovered in a recent podcast.

She was embarking on her own personal revelation, but I listened attentively, her words snapping into place like scattered puzzle pieces finally coming together in my mind for a glimpse of the full picture.

"It's not about whether it's easy or hard, it's about whether it's uncomfortable. Sometimes it's the easiest things that are uncomfortable...but God wants us to do them because it's the only way to stretch and grow ourselves from where we are."

I've paraphrased, of course, because my mind was too busy spinning in place at the time to trap her exact words for safekeeping. It kept spinning as the full picture came into view:
Degrees of suffering differ. Degrees of difficulty differ. But the discomfort we feel, whether it's a change in routine or little irritations or the most painful suffering imaginable, can still result in spiritual growth if we let God in to it.

"That's so true!" I said eagerly. "That's exactly what's happening to me this week!"

My poor, tired husband had to travel that week, which I was grumpy about to begin with because I would have to deal with first-world inconveniences like being alone and taking out the trash and making my son's lunch which my wonderful husband often does. But worst of all, right before he left, another child had succumbed to the type of sickness around which my life-long anxiety has built itself. I was certainly not okay with the arrangement of facing that all by myself. Besides feeling panicked and despairing, I felt very vindictive toward Murphy and his loathsome timing. (Somehow I couldn't grasp that I'd survived doing such things for the entire year of my husband's deployment as a full-time pregnant working mom with a newborn in a climate akin to the North Pole). No, I was going to whine about all my great many misfortunes this week. Poor, poor, me.

But my husband's plane was still leaving, and I was still going to have to face my fears head on, so I did the only thing I could (besides convincing myself that the worst was yet to come): I drew up Plans A, B, and C in case I had to jump into surround-sickness crisis mode, and then I convinced myself to go on with life.

Shockingly (to no one but me), it turned out to be a great week. By the time my sister-friend and I discussed the "blessing of discomfort" concept on Thursday evening, I was feeling no less brilliant and magical than Mary Poppins. The kids had all but recovered, I'd kept up with the dishes, tackled my husband's chores, initiated and completed two different crafts with the kids, and embraced our "animals" theme of the week (another post for another day--for Christmas my husband made me a calendar with a schedule of educational themes and activities I could complete with the kids each week, because he's amazing like that). And I didn't just talk about the theme one day; I totally ran with it--to the extent that I planned games, took them to the library to get a stockpile of related books and DVDs, and worked it into our pretend play. Oh, and I also vacuumed. Which happens around here all the never. I felt like the old me had taken flight the same day as my husband and a fabulously functional and patient mom had taken over. I liked it.

Then, with the week was drawing to a close, Sara shared her revelation. As her words came together, I, too, came to the realization that this happy Mary Poppins growth of mine was all thanks to being "uncomfortable." In the past week I had literally been forced out of my comfort zone onto the precipice of "just suck it up and do it," and when I finally jumped, God lifted me and made me fly farther than I could have ever gone otherwise. Usually, when my husband was around, I could huddle deep in the hermetic cave of my comfort zone; I could whine and pout about all my first-world challenges, I could freeze in fear of my ill children because someone else was there to save me from it, and I could let the trash pile up in hopes (or illusions) that it would magically disappear (because someone with more initiative and a weaker sense of smell would get tired of it overflowing). But none of those were an option when I was so uncomfortably alone. So I alone stepped up to the plate, and God pushed me an extra step from survival mode into the mode of happily--and functionally--thriving.

Yes, Sara was right; being uncomfortable could pave the way for greatness, and that's exactly what had happened that week.

I had to laugh when a few hours later I heard the same idea repeated nearly word-for-word in a little inspirational clip on the radio. Just in case God thought I wasn't listening, He made sure I heard it again--only this time, besides the concept of God helping our discomforts to refine us spiritually, it touched on the fact that we will still fail sometimes when we're made to be uncomfortable. Success isn't a given, but God still uses our failure for both refinement and a reminder that we can't do it all. And it's true: we certainly can't do it all on our own. We need to acknowledge our need for Him, and our need for help--both spiritual and physical help--when we need it most.

It sounded good enough in passing. Reality of course, would be a different matter.

Sure enough, the day after the fated discussion about the benefits of discomfort, I had a morning (and I mean a morning) that sent me plummeting deeper than ever before into the depths of motherhood failure. In one fell swoop (spurred by stress and school lateness my desperation of not being able to control one iota of the situation) I hit my absolute breaking point. And in the aftermath, I spent the entire day questioning to the nth degree my ability to mother these children of mine, let alone any child. I waited all day for the ambiguous 'they' to show up at the door and revoke my mom licence. Thankfully, my other dear sister-friend helped me do damage control, and accept that maybe I wasn't a total failure, until my husband arrived home that night to take over. It was that bad.

"Is this the kind of 'discomfort and failure' you had in mind?" I spat in God's direction. "Because clearly, it's NOT helping any of us!"

But there was a silver lining. That incident prompted me to start the arduous process of finding some desperately-needed help for issues we're having with our son. And through the struggle to find footing and purpose in the epic failure that followed my glowing success, the real light of the revelation emerged:

It's easy to say that refinement is good and necessary when things turn out well in the end.
Not so much when they don't.

It's easy for me to embrace the philosophy that certain discomforts are good for the soul when coming off the high of seeing it reflected in glowing accomplishments--a managed household, a relationship where I'm engaged with the kids, an ability to rise above the chaos and see how much we've learned together.

It's a lot harder to recognize the benefits of discomfort when I'm bruised and defeated, dragging myself out of the low of just having lost it for the fifth time in one morning. Or when I look around and see remnants of functionality that almost mock me in my current state of complete dysfunction--like the chalkboard with its theme that was a source of pride three weeks ago, but has sat untouched for the past three weeks while I've been floundering. That's when I want to crawl back into my comfort zone, even when I know it won't help, so I can cry my big fat tears and whimper, "I give up. I really do this time. I promise."

If it was so easy then when it was a hard thing, I let myself think, then why is it do difficult now when it should be easy?

Why? Because that's when the agony of refinement is happening. I'm just too busy being oblivious to recognize or remember it. I'm blinded by the glare of the one-step-forward-two-steps-back process, and can only see how far I keep falling instead of how far I've actually come. I forget that refinement is painful. An often long and grueling process, with very few moments to come up for air where I can see the sun of my accomplishments. And I especially forget that all the suffering I'm focusing on is a necessary pruning to produce a greater and more noticeable beauty when the time is ripe to bloom.

So in my humanness, I allow the Morning of Epic Failure to overshadow all the Mornings of Survival and Mornings of Patience and even Mornings of Smiles and Laughter. I let a little glimpse of an outdated chalkboard lesson (that weeks ago enticed a little chuckle and congratulatory self-pat on the back) become the catalyst for me to now reflect woefully and dramatically on allllllll the many days and ways since then that I've failed those who depend on me.

It was a great week
...last month.

That's the part of being uncomfortable that simply stinks. The nasty little voice of self-doubt that tries to chime in and get a foothold when our weaknesses are exposed. It's a nagging, hard-to-ignore, believable little son of a gun that threatens our progress again and again.

But something Sara texted me the day my husband was leaving (and I was wrapped up in the anxiety of dealing with sick kids and beyond) has been sticking with me. It was what prompted enough determination in me to push through the discomfort into the realm of Mary Poppins glory, and push again through the Day of Failure when I wanted to give up completely. "Try not to let Satan make you feel like you can't handle Peter being gone, sick kids, etc." she said. "You are capable. You are enough."

The powers against me want me to think that I can't. That the discomfort is too much. That my hobbit hole where my fears render me motionless and nothing ever gets accomplished is the only safe place for me.

But devil be damned, because I know now the opposite is true.

And that's the light that I'm holding onto. That even when I forget, even when I don't feel it, the Divine discomfort heaped upon me really is refining my work-in-progress self. And even in the discomfort, I can and will, even if I think I can't and won't. 

Yes, sometimes God makes will make us uncomfortable, and it will push us to succeed or grow beyond our wildest expectations.

Many more times, He will make us uncomfortable and we will fall and we will fail. The growth won't feel all that great. But the point is not necessarily the outcome...most times it's just to try in the first place--knowing that He is always there to catch us before we crash and burn all the way, and in the process allowing us to learn and be refined a little more each time.

So this is me, emerging from the Comfort Zone Cave and taking the leap in an attempt to shed my hermetic ways.

It's not always as scary as it seems.

I still don't like being uncomfortable. I still think God should have invented a better way (and I surely expect a good explanation from Him someday). I don't like not knowing whether a current season of discomfort will bring success or some failure that I'm supposed to 'learn from.' And most of all, I really don't like not being in control.

But I'm learning. Slowly. And I know that no matter how stinking uncomfortable I get, or how far I feel like I'm falling, or how snappy I get with Him about it all, God's always got my back--because He won't settle for anything less than the best for my soul. Comfortable or not.