Ted Kluck - Finding God in the Dark: Faith, Disappointment, and the Struggle to Believe

Everybody Hurts

TED KLUCK

Ive always hated the song Everybody Hurts by R.E.M. As a band, they always struck me as overly whiny and weaselly. R.E.M. was the guy in the perfect thrift-store ironic T-shirt, trying to find himself. Or the girl at the bookstore who was trying too hard to look casual. Im from the middle of a cornfield (Hartford City, Indiana), and singing about how everybody hurts just seems soft, self-indulgent, and pointless.

But the thing is, everybody does hurt. Life (thirty-six years and counting) has shown me this. Ive felt pain caused by others and, whats worse, my own sin has caused mental, physical, and emotional pain in others. Everybody hurts, and sometimes because of me. And in the church we sometimes expect people to just shrug and say, Well, its all part of Gods plan, which isnt necessarily untrue, but its a response that strikes me as a little inhuman and, if Scripture is to be believed, unspiritual. Job rent his garments and screamed, and the Bible said he was without sin in that particular situation. Jesus sweat blood in the garden. He didnt just skip to the cross saying, Hey, I know how this is going to work out, so its all good. Pain is real, and its not necessarily unspiritual to acknowledge it. This book, in part, is an acknowledgment of pain and a reflection on what to do with it. My chapters are narrative in nature. By the ripe old(ish) age of thirty-six, one of the things Ive learned about myself is that this, for better or worse, is how I write. This is a book about finding God in the dark. My chapters, in particular, will tell the stories of my darklosing an adoption; experiencing professional failure; and then ultimately, by a movement of the Holy Spirit, confronting my own dark, sinful heart. Now, looking back, I am filled with thankfulness for these events because they are the events that God ordained for me to bring me into closer, deeper communion with Him. But in the midst of them, there was great pain.

Still, a temptation in reading a book like this, and narratives like these, would be to say, Yeah, but Kluck hasnt gone through ________. He hasnt gone through what Im going through. I know this will be a temptation because Ive said similar things myself about stories that belonged to other people. Yeah, but...

I fully and openly acknowledge that there are many people who have gone through things that are much harder than the things I describe on these pages. But whats worth acknowledging, I think, is that these are the circumstances that God put me through in a particular time, and a particular place, for a particular purpose (my good and His glory). Ive tried to re-create them as accurately as possible, even though the process was, at times, more than a little painful. If youre in Christ, you can trust that God is doing, and will do, the same for you in your circumstances. Ive also tried to include Scripture thats practical and relatablethe kinds of Scriptures you can pray through when you cant seem to find the words or energy to pray on your own.

One of the things Ive always struggled with in life is listening to spiritual input from anyone whom I hadnt perceived as having gone through deep waters. My hope and prayer for this book is that by reading about my deep waters, you can love and trust God more through yours.

Humbly, in Christ,
Ted Kluck