The Chinese American author discusses how fully embracing the reality of our embodiment, with all its hurts and vulnerabilities, can bring us closer to Christ.

By Joshua Huver

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or many who experience chronic pain and illness, the body can feel like a prison to escape from. In her new book, Hurting Yet Whole: Reconciling Body and Spirit in Chronic Pain and Illness (IVP), Liuan Huska offers a biblical vision of wholeness where the body is not a problem to be fixed, but an identity to be embraced as God meets us in our suffering. An excerpt of Hurting Yet Whole is available here.

Liuan Huska is a freelance writer and speaker who has appeared in Christianity Today, The Christian Century, In Touch Magazine, Hyphen, Sojourners, and Church Health Reader. She completed a BA in anthropology at Wheaton College and an MA in social sciences at the University of Chicago.

In a recent interview, Huska shares insights from her new book, stories of her experiences, and encouragements for readers.

Can you share what Hurting Yet Whole is about? How do you see this book fitting in or challenging broader Christian discussions on suffering?

There are a lot of different ways that Christians write about the topic, and one is trying to make meaning out of it, like “Let’s try to find God’s purpose for you in the suffering or what's God’s plan in this.” I haven’t found those discussions to be helpful for me because, when it comes down to it, I’m still left with my body. The big question for me is that I wanted to be able to live in my body and appreciate my body because my body is part of who I am and not an appendage to my real self.

One of the big messages I received from the Christian community when I was going through pain was, “You can be well as long as you are spiritually well.” There is this sense that you are just going to leave your body to the side and focus on your soul. And that didn’t answer my question: How do I live in my body now? How do I be present to my body instead of escaping my body? That was what I felt like I had to do in order to move on.

I intuitively felt that was not the full picture of what God is calling us to when we are facing pain and suffering. I still wanted to bring in theology and all these bigger conversations, but I wanted to meet people where they are with the questions they have.

In what ways has your Asian American background influenced your thinking on chronic pain?

My mom grew up in Mao-era China. There wasn’t much sense of religious sentiment. There was only the material world, and people in her generation weren’t encouraged to seek meaning outside of what was right in front of them. She always said to me, “If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything.” There was this feeling that the body is all there is.

So, if I’m in pain, this is really bad because it is a deterrent from taking care of your family, providing and making money, and having security in the future. That contributed to some anxiety. My mom was sort of an anxious person as far as Asian mothers go, and that was part of my experience and shaped my thinking about suffering.

I have been thinking more about other resources within Eastern religious tradition. I have read that in Dao De Jing, which is the primary text for Daoism, there is a lot of “you just take what comes to you, and it’s not good or bad, it just is.” The way of the master in Daoism is to go with the flow and not judge things as one or the other. I’ve been thinking about that more when it comes to pain, in contrast to a Western approach where you put things in a category: this is from God and it’s good, or this is from Satan and it’s evil and part of our fallen nature.

I wanted to make meaning out of my pain and parse out what was good and what was bad. I had that resource in Eastern philosophy of “it is all part of the whole.” I know some Christians are scared of Eastern philosophy, but I think God’s truth can be revealed to us across cultures, and different cultures show us different aspects of God’s truth. I’m able to gain wisdom from approaching pain in a holistic and less judgmental way with the Eastern philosophical tradition.

As someone who has experienced chronic pain for over a decade, what advice would you give to your younger self or to those beginning the journey toward wholeness?

I felt so alone in my earlier years. I think some of that was my own making because I felt no one understood me or I wasn’t normal. I would say to my younger self that there are not two categories—that we are either healthy or well. Being embodied and living this life that we are called to in the Spirit is a continuum along the spectrum from perfectly healthy to dead, and we all kind of go back and forth. That helped me as I was able to embrace the truth that there isn’t a normal that we have to live up to, and we don’t have to force our bodies to go back to some kind of perfection.

Early on, I felt, “What I’m going through isn’t right, or this isn’t what God intended for me, so I need to fix it.” I would tell others that there’s nothing you need to fix. Your body is, and there are definitely ways to relieve pain and get better, and by all means seek medical help, but you're not something to fix.

It’s so lonely to be in pain, and that's why I wrote this book. So, I'd just say to people that you aren’t alone. This is a human experience and it’s not outside the realm of normal.

One of the emotions that stands out when reading your stories of chronic pain is frustration. Is there a place for frustration in your vision of wholeness?

I think there is a place, and it’s not helpful when we don’t acknowledge the emotions or say they're not there. I think chronic illness or pain is a loss. There is a loss of physical capacity and a loss of competence, like being able to do certain things, or a loss of identity. I used to see myself as a dancer and this person who could do anything she wanted, and I had to recalibrate my identity. So that frustration is a normal emotion to have.

One of the things that is interesting to think about when it comes to frustration—this is something I gathered from diving into disability theology—is that sometimes the limits and barriers we come against because of what our bodies are going through are created by society. Somebody who has to live in the world in a wheelchair is going to face certain limits, such as whether churches have accessible walkways that allow them to get into buildings or whether small groups meet at a house with steps. How are they going to make room for those people to be part of their group?

I think it's frustrating because we feel like our bodies aren't working, and we try to twist our bodies to work the way that society assumes normal bodies work. But we can also question. Maybe it’s society that’s assuming certain things about what’s normal. Those are all ways that we can come up against frustration that don’t always have to do with just our bodies. We're imposing outside standards, and we have to question who created those standards, why they are there, and if we can come up with different standards.

Considering this Advent season, what encouragement do you offer the church in addressing chronic pain?

I like to think about how chronic illness is not just about individuals having chronic illness. The pandemic feels like a chronic illness for society at large. We want so much to go back to normal, and we are waiting for the vaccine, and we are longing for a medical solution to our problems. We just want to get over our vulnerability and our limits and be okay.

The fact that Jesus came to embrace our bodies, to me, is an encouragement to not just get over it, but to stay present to the pain and the suffering. We can’t get to resurrection without the incarnation and the crucifixion, and it can really cheapen the whole gospel story to jump to the triumphal aspects of it. But we need to be reminded of the end of the story because it helps us get through the middle of it: the story of Jesus coming to be with us, and that he is not coming just to erase the suffering.

I think there is this sense that the second coming means we’re going to be done with the earth, and the earth is just going to be thrown away, and we are going to be in heaven. The reminder of the incarnation, but also Advent, is the reminder that Jesus is coming again—not to take us to heaven, but to renew the earth. It is a reminder of the importance of our bodies and the material world. They are part of what God is doing in this world, and they will be wrapped up in the resurrection, the glorification of the world, and the renewal of creation.

Photo by Engin Akyurt from Pexels

Redeeming the Body in Chronic Pain: An Interview with Liuan Huska

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