Chronic Pain, Teacher of Virtue
“Suffering is a great grace; through suffering the soul becomes like the Savior; in suffering love becomes crystalized; the greater the suffering, the purer the love” (St. Faustina Kowalska).
This Lent, the Catholic Women in Business team is exploring the theme “Cultivating Virtue in the Desert.” Learn more here.
“How is this helping you grow in virtue?” my therapist often asks me.
Last year, I started working with a new therapist after specifically looking for a Catholic one. It’s been a game-changer in my mental health and my prayer life. To live a fully integrated life, it’s important to make connections between what’s going on with my mental health and my relationship with the Lord. My therapist helps me make those connections, between suffering and prayer, between struggle and virtue.
Physical Suffering in the Desert
I’m in a season of physical suffering, a desert of chronic pain. I’ve had fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome since I was 13 years old. A few years ago, it was so well managed that I fell into the trap of thinking that I was “cured.” Pregnancy, childbirth, and the physical demands of caring for an infant and now toddler, however, showed me that I was wrong. Since 2021, I’ve been in a flare-up that is challenging in obvious physical ways but also in mental and spiritual ways.
It’s been frustrating and frightening. Now, I’m focused on seeing how it can be sanctifying.
Too often, I’ve thought, “I don’t deserve this!”—but in my better moments, I remember that if Jesus could suffer and die at the hands of people he loved, there is no “deserve” when it comes to suffering. Am I holier than Jesus? Certainly not. Am I holier than my beloved St. Thérèse, who died painfully and young of tuberculosis? Nowhere close. I could rattle off the names of many other examples.
So, then, if I can accept that there is no earning a reprieve, I can accept that God is not alleviating my suffering, at least not now, because he has a reason not to. That acceptance is step 1. The next step is discerning how I can grow in this suffering—what virtue or virtues I can learn because of my pain and how it can help pave my path to Heaven.
Eliminating Self-reliance and Growing in Humility
I’ve always tended toward perfectionism, overachievement, and self-reliance. Growing up, I avoided any activity that I didn’t think I would succeed in. I did well in school, and I did well for the decade I worked full time before I had my daughter.
If I’m being honest, I have to say that I expected the same would happen with motherhood. After all, I had godchildren, a niece and a nephew, and child care work experience. But, as any mother will tell you, becoming a mom brings you to your knees. It can break you, or it can humble you. I’ve had plenty of moments where I felt like motherhood was breaking me, but with God’s grace, it humbles me every day.
Looking back, though, I can see that becoming a mother was not the first time that God used my inability to rely on myself to teach me humility and surrender. Ever since I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome in ninth grade, I’ve had to rely on others for anything from opening a jar to getting caught up after missing school or work.
I know that I would have repeatedly fallen victim to self-reliance and hustle culture if it weren’t for my chronic illness. I would believe there was nothing I couldn’t do all by myself, and I would work way too hard to prove it. I would be devastated (more than I already tend to be!) by any failure, and I would never ask for help.
Over the last few years, the Lord has given me so much clarity in seeing my pride. Partly, it’s been in sudden moments of Holy Spirit-given recognition—but it’s also been through the gift (yes, the gift) of chronic illness. It’s so much easier to admit that you can’t do it all on your own when you literally can’t do it all on your own.
The Antidote to #Girlboss Culture
There’s been a lot of backlash recently to the “girlboss” phenomenon. (My co-president at Catholic Women in Business, Elise Crawford Gallagher, discussed this topic on a recent interview on the Mothergood podcast.) Partly, it’s due to the fact that “girlboss” culture can be exclusionary. It’s also due to the fact that women are tired of glossy perfection—perfection that they know does not exist. That perfection often includes self-reliance. It’s the feminine version of the “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” American dream.
No one does it all alone. No one does it all, period. We need help each other—from our family members, our friends, our co-workers. Most of all, we need God. The gift of any season we spend in the desert—whether because of physical illness or mental illness, a job loss or failed project, the challenges of a new baby, a breakup or a time of grief—is that it shows us our need for the Lord. As we cling desperately to our cross, we can feel the tap on our shoulder and see that Jesus, so willing to carry his own cross, has never left our side.
Taryn DeLong is a Catholic wife and mother in North Carolina who encourages women to live out their feminine genius as co-president and editor-in-chief of Catholic Women in Business and a contributor to publications for Catholic women. She enjoys curling up with a cup of Earl Grey and a good novel, playing the piano, and taking walks in the sunshine with her family. Connect with Taryn: Twitter • Instagram • Facebook • LinkedIn • Blog