'ONE DAY YOU’LL LAUGH ABOUT IT' ..

Do you know the expression ‘One day you’ll laugh about it’? We often say it when something unpleasant happens. Sometimes other people say it to us; sometimes we tell it to ourselves. Almost immediately, we begin explaining why things are not really so bad after all. It hurts, but thankfully nothing is broken. Something did not work out, but fortunately there are still so many other things you can do. Or you are sad, but surely there is still so much to be grateful for. Before you have even truly acknowledged what you are actually upset about, the word but is already waiting.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Perspective helps us not to become completely absorbed in whatever is going wrong at that moment. It reminds us that alongside what hurts or has failed, there are also things that are going well, people we love and reasons to be grateful. The question is simply whether that perspective always needs to arrive quite so quickly. But...

Are we still allowed to feel miserable?

Can you simply acknowledge to yourself that something is painful or unpleasant, or that things have turned out differently from what you had hoped, without immediately placing a positive thought alongside it? Resilience does not mean that every setback must be transformed into something positive as quickly as possible. Sometimes resilience consists precisely in being able to bear the fact that something is disappointing, without making the sadness greater than it is, but also without making it smaller.

Psychology approaches this in a strikingly similar way. Different emotions can exist alongside one another. Sadness and joy do not have to cancel each other out, any more than fear and safety, or disappointment and gratitude. You can find what has happened to you terrible and at the same time recognise that there are still good things in your life.

One does not make the other untrue.

It is precisely when both realities are allowed to exist alongside one another that space can gradually emerge to give what has happened a place, without brushing away the pain and without allowing that pain to become your entire reality.

We find that same space in Theology. Sadness does not have to be resolved before you may bring it before God. Gratitude does not have to precede disappointment, sadness, pain or anger when you come to Him. Nor do you first have to put what has happened to you into perspective before you are allowed to pray. Prayer itself can help us to see what occupies us within a wider perspective, not by making it smaller, but by bringing it before God.

Jonah shows, in an almost disarming way, just how much room there is within that relationship. He is not merely sad or afraid; he simply does not want to carry out the task God gives him. Not because he wants nothing to do with God, but because he does not want to do what God asks of him. God says, “Go,” and Jonah sets off in precisely the opposite direction. In everyday language, we might almost translate his response as: “Why do I have to do that? Do it Yourself.”

Perhaps you recognise something of yourself in Jonah. Sometimes you know perfectly well what is being asked of you, but you simply do not want to do it. You do not want to be brave, you do not want to do the right thing immediately, and you certainly do not want to be the one who once again has to take on a difficult task. Why you? Why now? Can’t somebody else do it?

Jonah flees and descends further and further, first to the harbour, then into the ship, then into the sea and ultimately into the belly of the fish. At the deepest point of that descent, something remarkable happens: Jonah prays. From the depths comes a prayer in the form and language of a Psalm. Precisely in the place where he seems furthest removed from the task God gave him, his relationship with God turns out not to have disappeared.

This does not suddenly turn Jonah into an exemplary believer. He returns to dry land, carries out his task and later becomes angry with God again. He remains contrary, indignant and remarkably slow to learn, but he also remains in conversation with God. Perhaps that is precisely why his story is so deeply human.

If you yourself are going through a period in which you are angry, experience resistance, want to run away or simply think, I don’t want this at all, read Jonah again. Not only the familiar story about the great fish, but especially the conversation between Jonah and God, his descent into the depths, his prayer there and his anger once he is safely back on dry land. It is an extraordinary story about a human being who certainly does not always think, feel or act in the right way, and yet whose relationship with God continues to exist through all of it.

The situation in Gethsemane is entirely different. Yet there, too, we find the same freedom to appear before God as we truly are. Jesus does not flee from His calling, but neither does He conceal what it costs Him. He does not minimise His fear or try immediately to give His sorrow a positive meaning. He says, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” asks His friends to remain with Him and prays that, if it is possible, the cup may pass from Him.

Jesus does not pray His anguish away. He prays from within His anguish.

Only in the midst of that prayer comes surrender: “Not My will, but Your will be done.”

Trust does not take the place of fear, and surrender does not erase sorrow. Jesus brings His fear into His relationship with the Father, and it is precisely there, in the midst of that fear, that trust also finds its place. Sorrow and surrender apparently do not have to exclude one another, just as Jonah’s resistance did not mean that his relationship with God had ceased to exist.

You do not always have to feel the right thing, immediately understand what is being asked of you or accept without protest whatever lies before you. You are allowed to feel miserable, afraid or sad, to become angry or to think that you simply do not want what has come your way. Not everything has to be resolved before you can pray. Sometimes prayer is precisely the place where the unresolved is allowed to exist.

That is also where the difference lies between putting something into perspective and explaining it away. What has caused pain does not suddenly have to become good. Nor does a disappointment necessarily have to prove afterwards to have served some greater purpose before you can move forward. Sadness does not have to become your entire reality, because alongside what has been lost, something good can still exist; alongside tears, gratitude can exist; alongside powerlessness, prayer; and alongside fear, trust.

‘One day you’ll laugh about it,’ we often say, and perhaps you will. But before you laugh, you are allowed first to cry, to feel miserable and to say that you wish things had turned out differently. You are even allowed to think: Why me? I don’t want this at all. And then, sometimes only much later, to move forward again.

That, too, is life.

_______________

Let us pray:

Lord, thank You for the gift of Your Holy Scripture, which we may take up anew each day and in which we may seek answers to the question of how we ought to live with one another. In it, we may read how the prophets before us related to the difficult, the painful and the darker edges of existence.

Thank You that, through all of this, You show us time and again that You are present with us.

Lord, have mercy on those who do not know You. Draw them to You, and let us be a connection between heaven and earth, through which people may come to know You and become connected with You. Strengthen us in faith, and thank You that You are so near to us.

Lord, Your Son has gone before us and has shown us that suffering does not have the final word, but that the final word belongs to eternal life in peace, mercy, Your presence and Your love. What immeasurable comfort we may draw from this, Lord.

Thank You.

Amen.

✝ 🌈

This reflection is inspired by the Scripture readings Jonah 1:1–3, Jonah 2:1–10, Jonah 4:1–11, Matthew 26:36–46 and Luke 22:39–46.