Faithfully Distressed
Have you ever felt your blood pressure instantly rise at the anticipation of being put on the spot? Recently, our clinical director announced that we, as a team, were going to work on the education that we offer patients and their families. We were each assigned a topic, and we would teach this topic to the team through the approach we would use with actual people on our service. As the chaplain, I was given the topic of spiritual distress. I felt my anxiety increase as I began to consider my approach more intentionally. I know how I sit with and engage someone who is currently in the middle of the experience, but how do I teach, equip, and fortify someone else for these times? And how do we handle spiritual distress as ministers and faith communities?
Situations of distress and crisis are frequently addressed by our fellow practitioners in the psycho/social disciplines. However, ministers should not necessarily sideline themselves to make way for counselors and social workers (as wonderful as their services are). I believe that those of us in ministry offer a unique and needed theological approach. Recently I had a particularly tender conversation with a woman regarding her mother. She shared that her mom was simply tired of fighting her disease and was now at a place where she was praying for her time to come. The daughter looked me in the eyes and cautiously asked, “Is it okay for her to want that, to pray for that?” Spiritual distress is a time of searching for meaning. A person has lost his or her balance and is at a critical turning point. Beliefs are challenged in light of current experiences, and typical sources of strength are not as readily accessible due to the fog of crisis. Life can either progress positively by regaining some footing, or it can continue to crumble. Now is the time for intentional intervention.
However, we might wonder whether a person is actually struggling with something spiritual. The challenge in noticing the spiritual aspects is that there is often overlap with other existing issues like emotional challenges, neurological disorders, and even physical symptoms. A problem arises, though, when we are too quick to ignore the possible spiritual element and move on to more clinical-sounding solutions. Please hear me clearly that I am a big advocate for professional counseling and multi-disciplinary insights. We should be wise and humble enough to know when to refer and knowledgeable enough to recognize the signs of suicide risk, clinical depression, and complicated grief. Having said that, the beauty of a theological perspective is that it can offer a person a renewed sense of God-given humanity in the midst of a diagnosis-driven culture. Theological approaches have the ability to allow room for the search for meaning.
What are your clues that spiritual distress is present? Here are some of the most frequent expressions I hear:
“Am I still faithful for thinking or feeling these things?”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“I know God is in control, but (fill in the blank).”
“I just feel like I’ve lost control.”
“I can’t see the meaning in all of this.”
“I don’t feel like I have purpose anymore.”
“I know I should spend more time reading scripture or praying, but …”
The experiences of spiritual distress vary, but these examples give common themes. I’d like to encourage us to watch not only for the stated concerns but also for the spiritual issues hiding underneath other symptoms.
So, how do we handle spiritual distress as ministers and faith communities? We start by assuring people that distress and crisis are normal, and they are not unfaithful for experiencing these things. There is room in our faith for crisis. We remind people of the spiritual resources already in their toolkit that they may temporarily be unable to find. We allow people room to express themselves. We remain as a calm presence to help someone regain his or her balance. We remember that trying to prematurely take away the crisis is not always helpful, since sometimes regulated levels of anxiety in the situation are necessary for a person to make positive change. Spiritual distress is a critical point where someone can either crumble into dysfunction or progress toward hope.
Ministers and faith communities play an important role in the midst of spiritual distress, but this is also an area where we need to grow. As a part of my initial doctoral research, I recorded pastoral care encounters over a three-month period, noting the type of concern to which I was responding and offering care. Relational and emotional concerns were the largest categories, and these stories speak to a common symptom of spiritual distress, which is abandonment. However, I often hear people describe feeling abandoned not by God but by their faith community. That realization stings. What happens when the group of people who should be the greatest support system are absent? Simply put, crisis.
But I want to end with good news. This isn’t every story. We can’t afford to let it be anyone’s story. We are uniquely positioned with the theological resources to calmly, patiently support people through the cloud of distress and to a new place of spiritual health and engagement.
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References
Clinton, Timothy and George Ohlschlager, eds. Competent Christian Counseling: Foundations and Practice of Compassionate Soul Care. Colorado Springs, Colorado: WaterBrook Press, 2008.
“Ethnographic Field Journal,” Ethnography by Gabe Fisher. June 21 – October 9, 2019.
“Hospice & Palliative Nurses Association,” www.HPNA.org
