Dear Suffering Ones- A Collection of Letters
By Rev Dr Christie Love, Pastor J.T. Young, and Holly Madden
Our Flipped Table Theology Podcast recorded an episode in February 2025 entitled “Dear Suffering Ones,” and we wanted to share those letters here to support you or use however you want to.
Dear Suffering Ones –
I don’t know what it’s like to be in your position, and I don’t pretend to know. All my life my privilege as a cisgender white man, raised in the suburbs of the Midwest, has shielded me from all of the pain, hurt, and oppression you’ve likely experience all your life. Never once have wondered where I would lay my head at night, what I would eat, or if I would be permitted to marry the one I love. My bodily autonomy has never been legislated and I’ve never been at risk of being murdered by the police in cold blood or deported by ICE while my kids were in school. None of these have ever been my reality, but they have been yours.
What has been my reality, though, is seeing my fellow Christians, pastors, and ministry leaders justify your oppression with religious language. I’ve seen our Lord and Savior—whose yoke is easy and burden is light, who came to preach good news to the poor and freedom to the captives—held up as the chief protector of all things white, conservative, and American instead of the Word made flesh who obliterates all hierarchies and critiques all politics. Much like the ancient church in Ephesus, whom John wrote to in the book of Revelation, we have abandoned our first love.
Despite what you might have heard being spewed from pulpits across America, I think it important to say that you don’t deserve the suffering you’ve experienced. You don’t deserve to suffer because you’re gay or an immigrant or find yourself at odds with the prevailing political powers of the day. The only thing you deserve is the unlimited and unconditional love promised to us in the gospel. While that is not something any of us can provide, there are many who have nevertheless pledged ourselves to the work of liberation necessary for that love to become a manifest reality in our world.
There be times when it doesn’t feel like it, but I assure you, friends—that day is coming when justice will roll like a river. When all have according to their needs and suffering is no more; when the powerful have been cast down and the lowly lifted up. No matter how those of this world may try to derail it, that is the future to which the Spirit is leading us. Don’t lose hope, and always remember: you’re not alone.
With love and justice
–J.T.
Dear suffering ones,
Your suffering matters. Every emotion. Every physical sensation in your body. Ever trigger. Every thought, matters.
We grow up believing that the ultimate expedience in life is happiness but suffering is too present in all of our stories and happiness is a skill not an arrival. As is sadness. we are conditioned to numb, to rush the process, and push on as if our bodies and minds have not been harmed.
So, with empathy, my spirit comes to yours to speak over you that you deserve whatever it is that you need in this present space. Time. Rest. Solidarity. Support. Sensitivity. Accountability. Understanding.
If your faith is wavering, let it.
If your heart is breaking, let it.
If your body is raging, scream.
If you’ve been numbing, feel.
May I offer you this healing perspective- you exist here under a sky that covers the entire world and everyone in it. The land beneath is home to seeds yet to emerge, to fungi that not only decompose but who speak for the trees, to rock and water- elements that hold us and speak to us, and roots that interconnect trees and plants. Trees are our breath/ they purify our air so we can breathe in life. They provide habitat and food for millions of species that we see as neighbor. We are so interconnected to every living thing in this beautiful world: the birds that sing each morning, the deer that visit us so calmly, the butterfly that reminds us we deserve to change, q].,s- so even in the isolation, you are never alone. May your own spiritual hope fill in the missing pieces. But you are not alone in suffering or in existing.
I wish I could offer you a kinder world. But I can ask you, please don’t lose hope. Everything, like this world, is seasonal. While we can’t always change our circumstances we have power over our own mind and the our perspective. When others won’t, protect your space, your body, your time, your emotions, your heart, your rest, and your mind. You are worthy of protection because of your mere existence. Seek safe community when needed. Don’t apologize for the boundaries you must set. And when you have the courage to speak up or stand up, your advocacy becomes hope to someone. I promise there is love that is bigger than you can imagine.
Do what you need to do today care for you.
And when it comes to theology or faith, may you be brave enough to risk losing it all in the hope that what you find is something more light-giving, more fulfilling, more healing, than you ever imagined.
In love and light,
Holly
Dear Suffering Ones,
I say this to me, to both of you, to so any friends that I hold close to my heart.
You were not created to do life alone. I emphasize it and I start there cause so much feels isolating. It’s a tool and it is a tactic to makes us fee isolated, and vulnerable, and weak. It is so critical for us to remember that other people feel the same way and there is solidarity in that space. And that solidarity, that commonality of struggle is actually incredible powerful. And if we can find ways to find our voices, to express our emotions no matter how deep and how dire they may feel, I think that the willingness to find your voice is also going to help you find your people. Find people who share your concern and burdens for the world. Find your people because we need our people to remind us on hard days to keep fighting, to not quit, to not give up, to not wave a white flag, and to not lay down. We personally cannot give up the fight for our own lives and our own progress. It is too important and you individually are too important to think that you have to or you should navigate these spaces by yourself.
And so, find your voice, find your people, but also find an outlet for your anger. Because anger, especially in spiritual contexts, is given a really negative rap. Anger, to me, is one of the most holy and righteous, and fueling emotions that the human mind and heart and body can generate. I know that there is a plethora of anger in our world right now, but if we can learn how to use that and direct that for forward progress, for conversation, for connections, for doing the work, we transform anger from this thing that feels like it sits in our gut and sits on our chest so that we cannot breathe and we turn it into something that is revolutionary. We turn it into connectiveness. We turn it into setting tables on conversation. We turn it into sermons and pulpits that bring about change. We turn it into activism and marches and awareness raising. We turn it into meeting the direct needs of our neighbors when we see people who don’t have shelter, or those who don’t have stable immigration status and are scared. Or those who are trans who are under attack and suddenly don’t feel safe in any way to navigate the word around them. We see this when we see DEI being erased. Our anger drives us to action.
I see you. I hear you in your struggle. And I recognize that sometimes struggle feels incredibly freezing. We get frozen in the space and we don’t know what to do. So stay in that space, and rest if you must, but don’t quit. And don’t give up. Don’t let yourself so apathetic that you become disassociated from the anger and the potential that can move us forward. This world needs you to steward the struggle that you are in right now and that may not be right now in this moment. This moment may be about rest, and healing, and gathering, and finding connection and community, but you have to find a starting point.
It’s not about what we do 5 years, or in a month, it’s about the next right steps for you. What is the next good thing that you can do for your neighbor. What is the next positive thing that you can do for your community, and we begin to move out of struggle one step at at time. The struggle often accompanies us on that journey. We start moving, that doesn’t mean we are free from all that, it means we turn ourselves into channeling this bulldozer that is giving it direction, giving it momentum, and giving it purpose.
If you struggle today, don’t struggle alone. Don’t struggle in vain. And don’t get stuck in the struggle. Find a way to take a step. Find a way to ask for help. Find a way to connect with people. Find a way to get involved in making a difference, because that helps us reclaim the power that struggles often feel like they strip from us.
-Christie