From Coping to Hoping
#75
Friend,
I’m learning to cope by learning to hope.
The other day I was having a conversation with some family members, and we got into a deep philosophical conversation, and one of my cousins said, “Isn’t all of life just avoiding pain?”
I’ve been thinking about that.
I don’t think it’s entirely true. I think sometimes we pursue pleasure instead of avoiding pain, but a lot of life is lived in the box of avoiding pain or coping with pain. And I think maturity helps us choose pain now to avoid pain later.
We all have coping mechanisms: these actions and behaviors that we use to avoid pain or unpleasant emotions. Some of them are mostly unhealthy: smoking, overeating, reckless behavior, etc. Some are mostly healthy: exercise, reading, etc. Even the healthy ones can become unhealthy if taken to an extreme or made into an idol.
Coping is a response to something. As the sitcom trope will tell you, if your boyfriend breaks up with you, then eat ice cream straight from the bowl. Something bad happens, I don’t want to feel bad, so then I do something that distracts me from my pain.
We need to cope. And sometimes what we need is to go and eat ice cream with a friend.
But I think part of coping is hoping. If coping is only a mechanism to avoid pain, then we are missing the promise of God’s redemption of pain. If we never face our pain, then we limit our understanding and opportunities of God’s work in the face of pain.
One way to understand maturity is the ability to face pain, and as you’ve probably heard “the only way to heal it is to feel it.” However to feel it with hope is not just to face the pain, but also to imagine the redemption. We can use our pain as a catalyst for how we or someone else can experience healing from our pain.
I can think of a couple of parents who have gone through the unthinkable: losing a child. They have used their pain as a way of bringing hope to others. One joined MADD (Mother’s Against Drunk Driving) and shared her story. Another lost their child to suicide, and they have a scholarship fund that is still going nearly 20 years later.
Utilizing hope as a way to cope does not mean that you won’t suffer or experience loss in profound ways. It means that your suffering and loss won’t be the only or the final word.
Love,
Aaron