What Your Pain Might Have to Say About Your Life Purpose
Written by JD Ward
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
One question essential to human existence is “What is my purpose?” Some may hear this question in its larger form, “Why do humans exist?” This can be a helpful question in trying to place our story into the larger human narrative. Most often though, we ask a more personal version of this question: “Amid the chaos of the world around me and the chaos that is in me, what am I supposed to be doing with my own life? What is my calling?” We crave our unique path. Our need to understand our purpose for living on this earth is the seedbed of making sense out of the chaos. This paramount question demands attention if we are to do it justice. Belonging, of course, plays a huge role in the matrix of meaning in our lives. We all desire people with whom we can journey together. Also, having the opportunity to grow and learn plays a part of our human search for meaning. And, as many great thinkers have come to believe, deepening our connectedness with the source of Divine love certainly can enhance meaning to life.
As a pastor, spiritual director, and formation coach, the question I most often hear regarding meaning and significance has to do with our outward call to make the world a better place. Some people may not even allow themselves the honor of asking this question consciously, while others only give it a cursory thought. But, if you listen carefully enough to the language of people’s inner yearnings, it is not hard to hear their unmet longings and a general discontent about what they understand as their mission in life – their calling.
The current cultural strategy in discerning calling looks at our gifts, gives aptitude tests and then logically comes up with the most viable financial vocational choice. This is a woefully under-resourced pathway for such a big question. This motif buys right into the consumeristic lie that people are primarily entities valued for what they can produce and the corresponding power they will hold to consume goods and services. We are so much more than that!
If we are willing to take a fresh look at a different framework for discernment, we will discover a more rich and meaningful understanding of call.
Frederick Buechner writes,
““The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet””
As a nod to this wonderful statement, I have nuanced it for my own coaching uses: You are involved in a Divine calling when your engagement in healing the pain of the world brings healing to your own soul. This is how good our God is! God has created us each to be a work of art with a unique healing call, as Eph. 2:10 indicates. And if we know that God is about healing broken places and broken people, would it not stand to reason that the healing work God has created us to do will bring our own healing? We do not have a distant God that has a bunch of terrible jobs for us down here on lowly earth and then divides that work out like a merciless taskmaster. No, we have a Divine Healer who carefully weaves an outer work of healing to our own inner healing.
If our experiences, joys, and especially our sorrows have something to say about our call, mission and purpose in life, and as Parker Palmer claims they do in his beautiful book Let Your Life Speak, then we have some soul searching to do. Rather than asking “what am I good at?”, “what do I really want to do?”, or “what do I want to be known for?”, we might start with, “What is my biggest pain?” That’s right, the question, “what is my biggest pain?” is more tied up in your healing work and life calling than your gifts. That might surprise you, so read it again. I assure you, if you have the bravery to sit with your painful experiences, to lean into this discernment framework, you will find a storehouse of treasure to guide your discernment toward the deepest places of purpose and passion in your soul while making this world a better place.
Direct Association
Considering our pain and how it might connect with the world’s pain, another question is needed to help this discernment: “Is the outward connection to the world’s pain indirectly or directly associated with my pain?” Direct associations are always a bit easier to discern. A direct association is a way to contribute healing to the exact pain in the world that we experienced ourselves. It might look like, after becoming sober from an addiction, we go on to be a healing force to other addicts. Or, when we find our childhood scars are filled with abandonment, we go out into the world and create places of belonging for others. This kind of discernment may take more bravery to engage, but it is usually more clearly discerned than indirect associations with our personal call.
Indirect Association
A call that is based in an indirect association still demands deep examination of our own pain but finds creative ways to connect our need to a need in the world. My own call fits into this category. When I was young, I made lots of mistakes and came to have a rather shaky reputation in my Christian High School. People saw the exterior of my life but could not see the deeply held passion of my faith. This reputation was painful for me and jokes that touched on it cut like a knife. Then, later in life, as I processed the pain in the world, my attention was drawn to an anger I held for the Church in America. I was disturbed that the Church was not living a life that represented God very well. I was able to connect my anger with my inner pain and this gave direction to my calling to rewire the Church. So, when I put the two factors together, I began to see that my own soul was being healed every time I was involved in helping the Church live in ways more worthy of its calling. As the Church is often seen as a visible sign of God’s work, I wanted the Church to give God a good reputation. This is an example of a more indirect association to call. It took a long time to discover this language but once I did, this discernment solidified my calling.
Take Time to Reflect
Whether you come to understand your call as healing a place in the world that is directly associated with your own pain or indirectly associated, let me offer three guides for your journey. First, take the time to reflect. Don’t rush; take your time. You might want to reflect on your pain and get crystal clear about it. Or, you might want to reflect on your healing efforts to see if there are connections that already exist. You might want to journal, talk with trusted friends, or just be silent in reflective meditation. This is sacred ground – so take your time and treat it as such. Make space to listen to your life well but also remember to listen to the One who spoke your life into existence – and expect a few surprises along the way.
Look Beyond Your Life
Second, look beyond your life. Begin to ask the question, “what need in the world really gets my emotions going?” It could be any emotion, like my experience of anger as I illustrated earlier, but it could also be sorrow, a sense of longing for more, joy at a success story, frustration at an injustice, or even despair. Emotions can serve as pointers to passions. So, pay attention to what moves you. It’s not the only factor, but it can be helpful as you try to connect your pain with the world’s pain.
Another suggestion in this area is to educate your heart and mind to the world’s needs through both study and action. If your emotions are stirred about a need in the world, pay attention to it. Follow where that stirring guides you. Study the need in the world. Find resources to learn about it. And, most importantly, get your hands dirty and jump in somewhere to help. In this way, you can take your reflection and put it into action and see if it fits you. It may take some time to feel the connection but give it a try and see how it goes.
Do Not Forget the Poor
Finally, do not forget the poor as you discern and process. It’s easy to think of a need in the world that is connected with the communities we are most familiar and experienced with. Unless you are from a disadvantaged community, if everyone follows that lead, the poor will be disproportionately left out.
So, if you are offering yourself to a real need in the world that you’ve identified that will bring your own healing, consider what that work might look like in an impoverished setting. If you allow your imagination to wander into new territory, your dreams just might take root in a new and wonderful community. What an adventure that could be!
Discovering Your Call in Community
Community and guidance can play a pivotal role in discerning personal calling. ReWire’s course, Call: Discerning Your Call in Community can provide both. Over the course of 10 weeks, participants are guided by an experienced ReWire facilitator through a process of personal discernment and discovery in the context of contemplative community. Call is intended to give you a helpful framework for your own discovery process while establishing a community environment that is safe and conducive to deep spiritual growth.
We offer Call: Discovering Your Call in Community periodically throughout the year, in rotation with our other ReWireU courses. Click the button below to learn more about this class and submit your contact information to receive updates about when this course is being offered again!