No Hard Feelings

“No Hard Feelings” is an inspiring folk ballad about finding peace in dying. The Avett Brothers ask: “When my body won't hold me anymore. And it finally lets me free. Will I be ready?” and “When my feet won't walk another mile. And my lips give their last kiss goodbye. Will my hands be steady?”1 Amid these weighty questions, the songwriters offer a consistent theme—a determination to endure the anguish of this life with no hard feelings.I reflected on the depth of this song as my brother, Erik Thompson, was in the throes of his battle with ALS, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that can rob you of your ability to function—to eat, drink, move, sit, stand, walk, talk, swallow, and even breathe.2 This song caught my attention because ALS lends itself to hard feelings: It is fatal, but it is cruel and punishing well before that. If today is bad, tomorrow will be worse, almost assuredly. As your body withers, your hope holds on for dear life. Lisa Genova noted that ALS results in a “paralytic crawl to death,” while Mitch Albom wrote this harrowing description: “ALS is like a lit candle: it melts your nerves and leaves your body a pile of wax. . . . [Y]ou cannot support yourself standing. . . . [Y]ou cannot sit up straight. By the end, if you are still alive, . . . your soul, perfectly awake, is imprisoned inside a limp husk.”3Drawing on the work of Paul Tillich, David Brooks noted that just when we think we have reached the lowest of lows, agony smashes through and thrusts us down to a new bottom floor with new pain that is as unfamiliar as it is agonizing.4 Life was once so promising—that is, before the bewildering incongruities and bitter ironies arrived. We start to ask: “Why me? Why this? Why now?. . . . Did not God notice this torturous turn of events? And if He noticed, why did He permit it?”5 C. S. Lewis wrote that feeling neglected in our suffering can seem like we are in a long and desolate valley, only to discover that we are actually in a “circular trench” where there is no relief and no end.6 Anger enters. We hurt, we cry, and we might even rage. We become overwhelmed and completely exhausted. Just when we think we have reached our limit, hope finds us again and lets us catch our breath. We bask in the warmth of a compensatory blessing—but, soon, the storm clouds return. Anger enters again—as if through a revolving door. We are cast down to a new level of misery and we are not sure whether to be more dismayed at the persistence of our suffering or delighted at the tenacity of our hope.Writing about the intersection of suffering and hope, Francine Bennion told a story about talking with a friend who, following brain surgery, had been left paralyzed on one side of her body and had severely impaired speech and sight. Bennion mentioned to her friend that she had been preparing to give a talk at the Brigham Young University Women's Conference on the theology of suffering. Bennion's friend replied that she would rather have the talk be about the “theology of—courage—hope—like looking out a window.” Bennion replied, “I hope it will be the same thing.” In the talk, Bennion noted that a useful theology of suffering helps us make sense of suffering in order to proceed with hope, compassion, and understanding. Bennion made the astute observation that learning to become more like our heavenly parents and living as they live will entail understanding and processing suffering in healthy and hopeful ways—suggesting that suffering does not just go away as we become more like God. Instead, as we start to become more similar to our heavenly parents, we develop an increased capacity to engage in, and triumph over, moments of suffering. To this point, she noted that the pathway to becoming more like our heavenly parents passes through—not around—suffering and that it is amid such suffering wherein we can learn to develop a better understanding of God and of ourselves.According to Bennion, we chose to come to this earth because “we were willing to know hurt” and it is in knowing this hurt that helps us become more like our heavenly parents: they know hurt and, as a result, feel “more abundantly alive, with ultimate fulness of truth, joy, and love.” Bennion also suggests that “nobody is manipulating every human decision that would affect every human experience” because, if that were the case, “we would have the kind of existence now that Lucifer offered permanently”—one absent of suffering but also devoid of agency, choice, vitality, and joy.7Our heavenly parents allow us to suffer because they want us to learn to know reality and to begin to enact and navigate daunting environments—and learn to find joy even amid such tribulation. This is the essence of mortality. Bennion noted: “If we are to be like God, we cannot live forever in fear that we may meet something that will scare us or that will hurt us. We have to be able, as he is able, to meet what comes of others’ agency, and of living in a lawful universe that allows creation of a habitable planet only when it allows also the difficulties that come in natural operations of such a planet.”As taught by Jeffrey R. Holland, suffering is the price we pay for divine growth. If we aspire to become like our heavenly parents, we must go through the type of suffering they have endured—and learn to endure it well just as they have learned to do. Holland makes this point as follows: “Lord, give me all thy choicest virtues, but be certain not to give me grief, nor sorrow, nor pain, nor opposition. . . . Lord, be careful to keep me from all the experiences that made Thee divine. And then, when the rough sledding by everyone else is over, please let me come and dwell with Thee, where I can boast about how similar our strengths and our characters are as I float along on my cloud.”8 Of supreme importance, in addition to learning how to endure hardship, we need a redeemer to overcome the harmful effects of this world—we need him if we are to endure the suffering that comes to us in mortality. Bennion wrote that the atonement of Jesus Christ allows us to endure “the falling, the hungering, the screaming, the crawling on the floor, the being disfigured and scarred for life psychologically or physically, and still survive and transcend it.”9One way Erik tries to transcend his circumstances and awaken his hope is by taking a break in his in-home sauna. He turns up the heat to warm his aching body and turns on the music to comfort his weary mind. One evening, I sent the song “No Hard Feelings” to him to listen to as part of his nightly sauna routine. A few hours later, I received a text from him that filled me with awe. He had a veil-piercing experience as he listened to the song. Erik wrote: “I immediately made it my goal to simply live, and choose to have a mindset of, no hard feelings to the end!” He elaborated on his daily battles with anger, noting that “sometimes anger wins, but not today.” He said: “I know it will get very difficult in the future to have this mindset, but I am determined to be grateful even when I suffer.” Reading Erik's message was a vivid reminder that I have a front-row seat to watch a remarkable human being work through his suffering with heroic determination.This front-row seat is both heartbreaking and awe-inspiring. It is heartbreaking because I continually think of what my brother is going through mentally, emotionally, and physically, and wish I could do something to soften the pain. I cry almost every day when I think about Erik's plight. As I imagine his circumstances, I feel his pain sharply. The emotional contagion between us as close siblings feels overwhelmingly gripping. I have often hoped that I would eventually wake up and this would all be a bad dream. But that has not happened. This is all too real—and the tears seem to flow even when I would least expect them: watching one of my sons play a ball game where I quickly put on my sunglasses to hide my tears, sitting in a work meeting where I suddenly start to take copious notes so I can shield my watery eyes from view, eating dinner with my family where I immediately take a long sip from my cup hoping the tears will retreat back into my eyes, or even teaching a class where I jump to a class exercise earlier than anticipated just to buy a few minutes for my emotions to settle down. Tender feelings sneak up on me with such a great force that it feels emotionally violent.It is heartbreaking because I think of what we used to do together. Oh, what I would give to see Erik hit an ace serve on the pickleball court and hear his clever trash talk, watch him dive into the corner of the racquetball court to make an acrobatic shot and hear him laud his athleticism, or observe him beat out a slow-rolling ground ball on the softball field and listen to him wonder out loud how he got such impressive genetics in the speed category (when I did not). I never realized how much I could long for what used to be regular occurences—I yearn for the return of such idyllic days.If I could have my wish, Erik would be fully healed. He would not have to deal with such physical misery and emotional angst; he would not have to face such frequent bouts of fear. A few years ago, I was almost sure such healing would be his. One night, I knelt for several hours and pleaded with Heavenly Father for relief for my brother. I was certain that an answer came—an answer that promised relief. The spiritual confirmation felt so real and valid. Later, I felt impressed to give Erik a blessing of healing and, on a different occasion, participated in a blessing where a revered family member promised Erik that he “would be okay.” In as much as Erik still faces daunting daily struggles, I spend some time contemplating what it means to “be okay” because I still believe that promise but I am unsure as to what that means in terms of mortality. To this point, the suffering that comes along with seemingly unfulfilled spiritual expectations feels like a special form of suffering. It is quite jarring and unsettling when petitions to heaven do not go as your heart told you they would.Nevertheless, I find great solace in this counsel from Holland: “There will be times in our lives when even our best spiritual effort and earnest, pleading prayers do not yield the victories for which we have yearned. . . . So while we work and wait together for the answers to some of our prayers, I offer you my apostolic promise that they are heard and they are answered, though perhaps not at the time or in the way we wanted. But they are always answered at the time and in the way an omniscient and eternally compassionate parent should answer them.”10I have absolute confidence in our loving heavenly parents. I feel them beckoning to us with gentle and reassuring warmth: signaling they are here, they see us, they know us, and they love us in ways we cannot yet begin to understand.In speaking about the nature of suffering and of our tendency to feel that nobody cares when we suffer, Holland expressed his belief that, during the atonement of Jesus Christ, the “father may never have been closer to His Son than in these agonizing final moments of suffering.”11 This is reassuring, even though the hurt remains very real. For Erik, he really does have some difficult days—and such days are only getting worse and more frequent. These are not fun days; they are not the days you post about on social media, share with friends, or even write about in your journal. These are hard days, excruciating days, even ugly days that are only seen by his innermost circle. As difficult as these days are, they are also bonding, connecting, and sacred. Our love for each other feels supported by unseen and holy beings. Even if our heavenly petitions are not always received as we had once hoped, our confidence in the existence of a benevolent, involved, and loving God has increased.Even as our hearts feel more broken than ever, our love feels deeper. This experience is allowing for our souls to commune with each other at a different level. It feels loved-based and unifying. Even my crying has taken on a different form. I have from frequent crying that my heart to daily crying that my and my I am even becoming more willing to cry taking my I have come to see crying as a that out peace of and my even as it and feelings of I a helps me feel closer to is so much about Erik's circumstances that is awe-inspiring. And there is that the and of heaven have these do not me from to for and divine For there is a and Erik's does not that I never with hard feelings: The battle is real and it is often in my to the of my I am looking to my brother, are his to to hard but I see him them Even if human in his he is in to hard he is with he can be into at least different and is a feeling of in to a This type of is emotional and can be but also is tendency to feel as a of and of with develop on the of a with an future often being through the of us to of and us to the of who, his did God the day The effects of are It is helps us see as they are, and our can life more even while us a of and can to increased life sense of and as well as and if we also allow to experience the even if emotions that come into our is a of it cannot simply pain. does not the of nor does it it can suffering as a The between suffering and is more of an of an Erik can be grateful in his circumstances wish he never had to go through such He can be delighted by his by his He can also that ALS will not be his To this point, in a with and Erik body has ALS, but my does Holland wrote that day the will break and all of will where we will become and The atonement of Jesus Christ makes the in our a to be grateful and a to hold on to ultimate has a close with the of being in the of something that your understanding of the is a that can be through spiritual and and as to and divine while that is by the of the in that it heavenly and experiences of to to overcome with is something I see when I spend time with He and I had a to the together. his to his I had the of him through the a of our we were by our I Erik with all of his might to his He did not get his all of the way but it was his determination that was so His was an of holy He was he had to commune with his time I with Erik was when I sent a to him about Erik is a I was the on my and to get Erik's about the best way to a certain Erik replied by a of a he on his a Erik's similar to what a might had taken away his ability to his It was not an but it was an of I as I at there was the experience I had at Erik's I had out to the to get As I back into the I heard a a and through the The song was “Lord, I This is by I felt a very I was with my spiritual and with my spiritual eyes for a were down my as I It was as if my had on the from the And it was not just a few of them: It felt more like all of them at It was very but The message was God all of us very much and our are to us that. It was and an reminder that we are not all I felt part of something much than my felt part of a that I believe was by Erik and heavenly beings. I felt and I and to these of experiences as the where we feel by a force that is and In this is We feel in the but because the of the and helps us become and more is also an to emotional and can of because it the for moments of We begin to see the ways in which We start to see that suffering is as as it is To this point, this does not to the ways in which we suffer nor does it to suffering. is not all suffering to some suffering may of and as well as in social and can be with some of suffering being too difficult to talk about or even heart to all will also my in this about suffering. I it well years ago, but I whether I had the to write about a and is a to my to get this I whether I had to write about suffering. I really with I this and of times but could only write a or if that, and would have to to feeling very to on and of the of the in ways I had not fully at that I that this had to do with whether I had and to do with the that Jesus Christ has He has and the of that are inside I had on this and I had reflected just to start in this is to to the effects of and to my belief that Jesus Christ is the ultimate from all suffering. In my view, and to the suffering a pathway to hard feelings as noted by the Avett much for to keep them and Avett Brothers are hard feelings does not us. But how do we overcome on emotional helps us that we can learn to difficult emotions in healthy can become with emotions being by them and we can develop an increased of their on us being by We can learn to from these difficult emotions while them with and As we we will begin to away from and and even when our of suffering noted by Tillich, you to yourself and you that you are not the you you of and wherein “we can suffer our way to and experience our of because of the suffering but because of our to the As we on ways to experience and allow to feel even our difficult we might see that suffering really has us to a different of more of us, our bottom floor of suffering can break us as we to something bad by it into something into for that the of and would yield you were taught and for the circumstances you would in this truth, it is not always to the we learned from our heavenly parents in the life is and suffering is If suffering as a gentle I cannot think of would In the time suffering at my I will not want to If it to come in because a God me to suffer, but because I chose to live in a with will to be like my brother, to with all of my might and moments of while to feel the very difficult and emotions with this I will also to the I received from God. I know the will me what I learned about the nature of In I feel that I get of this from time to I am eternally grateful for such I of this will take away my but I do think it will me feel love for I also believe it will me of divine that can come to each of us because we are of noted by Holland, it is difficult to even imagine the type of joy that us in our even in we can have a experience with the even in “the even the and are because the has divine and is and fully He and feels every human every human and every human He can comfort as no He can as no He can listen as no is no hurt he cannot He our every pain, sorrow, and is to all work together for our To this point, told a finds a the the the the and is the the This story where what to be an turn of a We can have confidence that all can eventually work together for our because, the very real of we have a is can think of no better of than our Jesus our ability to and he did not He to but he by the he made with Heavenly Father to Jesus Christ on because of the joy that was before to us from us with divine and all of our that we might an with have us us through the of We will forever and our compassionate in we will forever He us from that suffering. Our “the and agony of and that he might us no no and no hard