Why Do We Say What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger?

  

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger! 

What does that even mean?  

Quora says that the phrase or cliché “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, was originally penned by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, in his book Twilight and Arrows, and it was used as a motto for Hitler’s Nazi youth camps.  He wrote a similar line in a later book entitled Ecce Homo, just before he went completely insane. 

Umm, that's not a motto I want to adopt.  Furthermore . . . 

In our case, John's trauma did kill him.  His pain did not make him stronger.  In fact, it was more than he could bear and it led, eventually, to his accidental overdose. So I guess he wasn't strong enough, huh?   

And now, his trauma has become our trauma.  His pain will forever be our pain.  His death has become our instant replay.  His death is what we try to keep held tightly behind our walls.  His death has affected who we are and what we do. It has infiltrated every fiber of our being - the very air that we breathe.  

But I guess it didn't kill us.  It just made us feel like we wanted to die.  So does that make us stronger? Do I feel like I came out of it stronger?  Better?  Well, no.  For one, we will never come out of it.  And, if anything,  it has made me even more aware of my own weakness. Of the frailty of life.  Just how short it can be.

Strong.  It’s rather humorous really.  Here we are going through life pretending, living behind a mask, trying to function and hold ourselves together, and you get called strong.  If people who are suffering from loss appear to be doing okay on the outside, we go ahead and slap the strong label on them? How is she doing? She's really strong. But is she?

I mean, I guess it's better than a lot of other options - but most of us would not tell you that we have become strong.  We would hesitate to tell you we were even "okay".  If we were being honest, which we rarely are, because the question isn't exactly asked to receive an honest answer, we would say that we are terrible.  But, again, it rarely happens - the honest asking, so we just stick with "good, you?".  All Minnesota nice, short and sweet - kind of like waving as you drive by, only with words.  

I think a more accurate description of "strong" when referring to those who have lost a child would be:  

• Displaying no emotion or the absence of feeling.  
• Emotionally detaching from the reality of your horror.  
• Having your walls up so high that the average person cannot easily detect sadness or see signs of sorrow.
• The amount of time you can successfully ignore your loss in order to function.

In other words, strong equals how good you are at faking it.

I'm sorry.  For all of you who love the word, it's okay.  I don't hate it.  It just doesn't seem appropriate to me, as a word lover, in some instances.

The truth is, the human mind, as miraculous as it is, was not built to withstand the devastation contained in this broken world. When God designed us, His plan was a beautiful garden in a perfect world, with Him – and this present reality is so far from that.  

We live in a world where bad news is everywhere, and at the push of a button, you can rewatch the horror again and again.  You can even hold the horror in your hand, for your convenience.  It's constant and unending. It's up close and way too personal. 

The reaction to this worldly trauma can manifest itself as addiction, PTSD, suicide, depression, mental illness, and anxiety.  Often times the things we see, the things we carry, the things that happen to us or around us, are put on constant replay in our brain.  We can't help it.  We spend all of our energy trying to stop it or at least calm it down.  

My replay is very unpleasant.  The images that play over and over in my mind are not something I should've had to witness in my lifetime.  It is indeed a nightmare straight from hell.  So, I, like you, have to be very careful what else I allow in, at least if I want to keep that public mask on.  

So we learn to be intentional about what we do, where we go, and what we say "yes" to.  We may say no to anything geared to elicit an emotional response.  We learn to avoid new situations that lead to small talk and the inevitable questions.  We learn to guard our hearts. We find out very quickly that the words "my son died" are impossible to say out loud if you want to keep the mask on.

To me “strong” sounds like a positive word. So, I'm going to pass on "strong".  I know too much to consider myself strong.  I’ve seen too much.  The nightmare happened. 

I'm going to embrace a different definition of the word strong - and it's straight out of the New Testament.  If just happens to be in Johns' life verse: 

1 Cor 16:13

Be on your guard; 

stand firm in the faith; 

be courageous; 

be strong.  

The Apostle Paul wrote Corinthians in the Greek language, and the Greek definition of strong in this verse means to “show yourselves brave”. 

That’s the word I’ll keep.  Brave.  To me, brave says I've had to deal with something out of a nightmare, and I'm still here.  Strong says I beat the nightmare or chased the monster away, which can be very relevant for some, but not for others.  Our nightmare doesn't go away but lives with us and in us.  We have to be brave to share head space with that.

I see it like this:  I'm in a small room with a lion.  I'm a snack.  It doesn't matter how physically strong I am.  It doesn't matter if I can withstand the force of the lion - we all know I cannot.  I can't outrun it or out muscle it.  But God can.  And I can be brave in the face of my circumstance.   And whatever the outcome with the lion is, whether I survive it or not, I know that I will end up with Jesus.  That is my eternal hope.  That is the essence of my faith.  That is where I place my trust.

So I will stand firm, believing that whatever this world throws at me, I will endure it, or I will leave it behind when my numbered days are up, and I will go home. At that point, I will have won my race.  I will do that in my fragile body, trusting that God knows the outcome, and none of it was a surprise to him.

God is also very detailed and intentional and his timing is always perfect.  Did you know there is no word in the language of the Jewish people {Hebrew} for coincidence?  

So when I got this text, while editing this post, I smiled at the intentionality and the timing of the Lord:  "You are such a strong woman of God, I know it’s through his strength that you reach out to so many others and become their voice and their comfort".  (I thank you dear one, for reaching out, for those perfect words that remind us of where all our strength lies . . .in Him).  

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.  Eph 6:10 ESV

So, to me, staring my lion in the eyes looks like this:  

I am doing my best to be brave

while relying on 

God's strength 

and His promises

 using John's pain and my trauma

in conjunction with the words 

He allows me to write

in my brokenness and vulnerability 

to hopefully be a comfort to others

 and let them know they are not alone.

Are you facing down your own lion today?  What does it look like for you?  Are you leaning on Him - or are you trying to do it on your own?  I hope you'll be brave. ❤️