Renewing Your Mind – "Limping Heavenward"
Date: December 5, 2025
Host: Nathan W. Bingham (Ligonier Ministries)
Guest: Carrie Hahn (Associate Editor, Certified Biblical Counselor, Author)
Episode Overview
This episode focuses on understanding and enduring comprehensive and chronic suffering as a Christian. Nathan W. Bingham hosts a candid conversation with Carrie Hahn, author of Limping Heavenward: Living by Faith in Comprehensive and Chronic Suffering. Carrie shares her personal experience with prolonged adversity, explores how suffering tests faith, and offers practical and theological insights for sufferers and those seeking to support them. Together, they discuss biblical lament, the problematic ways Christians may try to "comfort" the afflicted, and how the church can better love its most suffering members.
Key Discussion Points and Insights
Defining Comprehensive and Chronic Suffering
- Comprehensive suffering: A form of suffering that disrupts most or all major pillars of life simultaneously: physical health, relationships, finances, career, social life, and home.
- Chronic suffering: Not temporary, but a long-term or permanent "intrusion" that requires adaptation for the rest of one's life.
- Carrie’s story:
- Onset of severe illness in 2012 leading to total life disruption (03:02).
- Losses included health, job, relationships, finances, friendships, and home.
- Ongoing sense of feeling trapped: “...it felt like God was keeping all the doors locked, no matter how hard I was banging on them.” (05:15)
- Struggled with the contradiction between her previous faith convictions and ongoing suffering.
Why Another Book on Suffering?
- Existing suffering literature often assumes suffering is limited in scope or duration, or that the sufferer’s faith remains strong.
- Carrie's book speaks to outliers—those facing suffering that is both broad and unending.
- “I wrote this book for everyone who kind of feels like an outlier or on the fringes...” (06:53)
"Limping Heavenward"—The Image and Its Power
- Inspired by watching elderly or burdened people perseveringly climbing a hill:
- True admiration should be for those carrying many burdens, not just the strong or fast (09:30).
- “Our limp is real, but so is the destination of heaven. Our groaning is real, but so is the glory that will one day be revealed...” (Read at 07:57)
The Writing Process and Spiritual Change
- Writing the book itself was less transformative than living through 12 years of suffering.
- Publishing the book has “humbled me before the Lord to see how he could use such horrific things ... to hopefully strengthen other saints...” (10:55)
- God can use experiences that “seem utterly pointless and irredeemable to me” for good.
The Book’s Intended Audience
- Not just for sufferers, but for all Christians to better understand and care for those enduring chronic, comprehensive trials (12:04).
- Hopes to bridge "huge gaps in care" within the church.
The Five "A's" of Miserable Comforters (13:00)
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Accusation:
- Blaming suffering on the sufferer's personal sin.
- Admonishing for "inadequate" responses to suffering.
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Aphorisms:
- Using scripture soundbites or imperatives to force premature rejoicing or guilt sufferers into certain responses.
-
Avoidance:
- Distancing oneself from sufferers to avoid discomfort, emotional demands, or time commitment.
-
Abandonment:
- Complete disengagement, cutting off relationship and support.
-
Apathy:
- Knowing needs but refusing to help, picturing the priest and the Levite in the Good Samaritan parable.
“A miserable comforter is a miserable comforter when they prioritize something other than giving comfort and help, or when they think that their job is to stop a sufferer from experiencing negative emotions...” (15:32)
To Those Realizing They’ve Been Poor Comforters (16:52)
- Carrie: “Repent.”
- Loving suffering people is one of the most important—and lifelong—ways we grow in Christ.
- We all fall short at times and must continually learn to do better.
Theological and Emotional Impact of Suffering
- Suffering can profoundly shake beliefs in God’s love, goodness, and protection (17:59).
- Vulnerability to doubts about salvation, personal worth, and belonging to Christ.
- Feeling "worthless" due to inability to contribute.
“Reading the psalms can almost sometimes start to make us feel worse, because at first glance they can seem like broken promises of protection.” (18:53)
The Role of Social Media for Sufferers (20:07)
- Negative:
- Heightens awareness of missed blessings and deepens the sense of loss.
- Positive:
- Sometimes a "lifeline" for community for the isolated, though it shouldn’t substitute for embodied church relationships.
- “Social media in some cases is meeting needs that the sufferer's local church ... aren't meeting.” (21:45)
A “Jostling” Gospel Moment: Jesus and Peter (22:06)
- Peter, after learning he will suffer, asks what will happen to John. Jesus replies:
- “If it’s my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me.” (22:24)
- Lesson: The path of constant comparison is not life-giving; direct your focus to Christ and your own following of Him.
The Practice of Biblical Lament (23:58)
- Lament as a Faithful Response:
- “Lament is faith's way of connecting to God in pain.”
- It's both authentic and necessary in a fallen world; neglecting lament is emotionally immature.
- Not only private, but also corporate—we must lament with and for others.
- “Stoicism isn't godliness and emotions aren't sinful.” (24:14)
Encouragement for Those in Suffering (25:46)
- You Are Not Alone:
- Even if friends, family, or church have abandoned you, “the Lord is with you, even if it feels like He’s forsaken you.”
- There are others in history and around the world who share your story.
- Your Suffering Has an Expiration Date:
- Even if lifelong, it will end—there is “a glorious and happy never-ending future with the triune God and with his people. So don’t give up.”
Updates on Carrie’s Situation (27:06)
- "A lot of things have stayed the same. ... I did just a few weeks ago get married, so that’s a pretty big change to life."
- Suffering continues; her story is ongoing.
Notable Quotes & Timestamps
- On suffering’s totality and endurance:
- “It’s not just one or two of those pillars of life falling down. It’s most or all of them falling down at the same time.” – Carrie (02:24)
- On resignation and faith:
- “It felt like the last bit of my faith just got sucked out of my soul.” – Carrie (05:29)
- On the church’s role:
- “My hope and prayer is that everyone who reads the book will find themselves better equipped to help these kinds of sufferers and to take care that they don’t just hurt them further, either through their action toward them or their inaction.” – Carrie (12:14)
- On supporting sufferers:
- “Sometimes, for whatever reason, when we think about the big ways that we need to grow and be sanctified ... how we love hurting people is one of the most important things we need to grow in to grow in Christ.” – Carrie (16:55)
Timestamps for Important Segments
| Topic | Timestamp | |----------------------------------------------------|-------------| | Carrie describes her suffering | 02:03–06:28 | | Why this book is different | 06:53 | | "Limping Heavenward" image explained | 08:52 | | Writing’s impact on Carrie | 10:55 | | The book’s audience | 12:04 | | Five “A’s” of miserable comforters | 13:00 | | Realizing you’ve been a poor comforter | 16:52 | | Effects of suffering on faith | 17:59 | | Social media and suffering | 20:07 | | Jesus’ words to Peter and comparing our stories | 22:06 | | The importance of lament | 23:58 | | Encouragement for chronic sufferers | 25:46 | | Updates on Carrie’s life | 27:06 |
Final Encouragement
Carrie’s testimony and counsel remind us that honest, biblically-grounded lament is essential for faith in a broken world, and so is persistent, humble love for those who most acutely suffer. The episode closes with the sober truth: not all stories resolve in this life, but Christ remains our hope and destination.
“Your suffering does have an expiration date. Even if it lasts for the rest of your earthly life, this is still only the middle of your story… there is a glorious and happy never-ending future with the triune God and with His people. So don’t give up.”
— Carrie Hahn (25:50)