The Purpose-Driven Death

The Toxic Spiral of Looking for Purpose in Suffering

Part of a Series on Life after Chronic Illness Part of a Series on Factors of Religious Trauma in Chronic Illness

Finding purpose in your suffering is a piece of advice often given to those with chronic or terminal illness to help them cope with their pain and grief. Finding purpose in your life is a piece of advice given to anyone feeling stuck or depressed, and is purportedly the “final piece” of the healing puzzle for those seeking to reverse their diagnoses and come back to life after a lengthy illness.

But what does that mean? And why is this “good” advice so often taken in offense? Must we blame ourselves for staying “stuck” if our hopes, dreams, goals, and purpose are constantly meeting obstacles and relapses? Here’s an introduction to my own journey with the word and the weight of the concept of “purpose.”

I grew up a PK (Pastor’s Kid) fully immersed in Evangelical Christianity (distinctly American, Reformed, Baptist flavors). My mental and physical health journey is intricately tied to the fundamental religious beliefs I picked up from the moment I was conceived. This space has thus become an arena for untangling the cords of religious trauma and belief systems every bit as much as chronic illness, mental illness, and my resulting identity as a human being and creative.

When I was a sophomore in high school – that critical year when you start preparing for SAT’s, college applications, and get serious about your future – Christian megachurch pastor Rick Warren published the book “The Purpose-Driven Life: What On Earth Am I Here For?” I didn’t even have to read the book myself for its influence to completely infiltrate my young-adult life and beliefs. Warren’s “The Purpose-Driven Church” had already been shaping the religious community for 7 years, and (God bless consumerism!) the sequel spawned an entire genre of “Purpose-Driven” media: Bible studies, conferences, youth group programs, kid’s(!) books, church resources, music, movies, testimonials… it is considered one of the most influential books in Christian ministry.

Anyone serious about being a Christian (and I was!) followed the teachings of this book, a 40-day devotional instructing you how to constantly think about and apply your God-given purpose (lest you fail at life, disappoint Jesus, become an addict, and go to hell, elaboration mine.) It begins, “It’s not about you,” and proceeds to explain that our purpose in life is (without a doubt! God says so!): worshiping the Christian God, being with other people who worship the Christian God, becoming like Jesus rather than yourself, serving God in Christian ministry, and having a Christian mission. THAT’S IT.  This is all we must concern ourselves with, day in and day out, and if we don’t, we are in very serious trouble of our own stubborn making (and we risk taking the entire nation down with us)!

Imagine my surprise, confusion, horror, betrayal, and self-loathing when I reached my 30’s having served as a worship leader, church and ministry team member, Jesus Freak, church-painter, meal-maker, orphan-hugger, poor-feeder, Sunday School teacher, and foreign missionary… only to be struck with irreversible, incurable, body- and brain- destroying diseases, with no community, no fundraisers for medical treatment, no meal trains, no miracle healings, and no following of inspired proselytes to tell me what a beautiful martyr I was being.

I’d been purpose-driven to death. Literally.

This blog documents my wake-up call from chronic illness, and the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual healing I found in turning away from all that I was told was the meaning and savior of my life, abandoning my Purpose™.

Imagine my surprise, confusion, horror, betrayal, and self-loathing when I dove into the healing community, self-help books, medical journals, and inspiring testimonials of those who healed cancer, HIV, autoimmune disorders, hereditary diseases, Lyme, long COVID, ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, NDE’s, etc. and discovered that all their advice, healing, and rebirth had one thing in common, among others: finding and living your purpose.

Yuck. I’d already been down the path of a purpose-driven life; it almost killed me. Now you want me to embrace purpose-driven healing, when everything I ever knew (without a doubt! God said so!) was pulled out from under me and proven false? I’m sick, I’m disabled, I’m confused, and you’re gonna ride in here all saddle-back and tell me it’s my own fault because I refuse to follow my true purpose in life?! Nah, ride on out of here.

The thing is, I did heal. I did get my life back, and I arrived on the shores of a brand new world, completely empty and clueless about what to do, where to go, and, viewing the dumpster fire on the horizon, wondering why I worked so hard to heal at all. What was the point, given the circumstances (it was the 2020’s, need I say more?). Gosh darn it, I needed a purpose after all.

Also prevalent in Evangelical Christianity is the idea of the Rapture and Apocalypse, when Jesus will suddenly come back to Earth, suck us Christians up into heaven, and then destroy the planet with all the sinners still stuck in it, begging for a second chance. This end of the world will happen suddenly and completely by surprise, at any given moment on any given day – maybe even today! In the middle of the night! Maybe tomorrow! The prevailing teaching to my generation was that it will very likely be in our lifetime, because all the “warning signs” prophesied in the Bible are accelerating: violence, greed, poverty, wars, the charismatic anti-Christ world leaders… and apparently vaccines and barcodes? Many adults raised as Evangelical children will say they lack motivation or purpose in life, because they truly honestly were led to believe none of it mattered: we would all be raptured soon, so the only thing we needed to worry about was evangelizing and “saving” people (á la Rick Warren’s “Purpose”). We suddenly reach middle age with no skills, no sense of Self, and no purpose, because we literally believed we would be dead soon, and were much more concerned about dying before we got a chance to fall in love, have the forbidden s*x, and start families.

The final stage of healing – finding and living your purpose – was a years-long struggle for me, partially because of the above trauma that made me avoid the word “purpose” like the plague; partially because life threw me a ton of curveballs in those years (I was disabled, unemployed, lost my home several times, and moved to a country/language I knew nothing about and had to start all over 3 times); partially because the world was going to war and all of our systems were beginning to collapse, leaving me no framework to even attempt getting back out there again. And partially because practical purpose-finding materials and support was hidden within paid programs and subscriptions; I couldn’t find stand-alone materials or communities or, what I wanted most, real-life friends and mentors, to help me navigate this really important but really vague stage of healing and life itself. I didn’t want someone else’s purpose (or religion, or MLM), I wanted my own. “Post-traumatic growth” is a niche topic creating its own paradigm, and it doesn’t feel right to be labeling myself an 'influencer' or a 'rebel' or a 'coach' or an 'activist' any more than I want to go back to being a 'trad-wife' or a 'Jesus Freak' or a 'Proverbs 31 woman.' I don’t want mentoring for how to get into the current society, I want to build a new society, of integrated mental, spiritual, and physical health concepts that we live by, not get rich by. I don’t want to do life in the ways of the old paradigm, nor do I care for the ways of the current world I woke up to: write books, create programs, become an influencer, become a coach, market, sell, advertise, sell more, market more, be more, do more, work more, purpose-purpose-purpose or die! Social media and coaching feels like the new “Rick Warren for atheists” to me. It’s gross.

But here I am… figuring it out as I go, and also resting in the deeper truth: you heal as you go, too, not just after you figure it all out.

So here is my story. Here is my journey. Here are the thoughts, frameworks, and skills I built for myself on my own personal journey to finding purpose when the word “purpose” triggered PTSD and had me running for the hills. Here is my documentation of the “Now What?!” Stage of Healing, my self-portrait of Post-Traumatic Growth, my road map of precious dead ends and rabbit trails that led to the treasures of both “then and there” and “here and now.” It’s mine, it’s not meant to be yours. But the power of expression is that it ignites others’ expression. So here’s my fire – light what you will inside of yourself.