The Furnace of Affliction

Live Updates from the Furnace of Affliction

Coming to you live, homie.  The title is a reference to Isaiah 48:10, in case you were wondering.  But Isaiah isn’t the only text that uses the imagery of a furnace.  The book of Daniel does something similar, with Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego being thrown in a furnace. Psalms (12:6; 34:19), Proverbs (17:3; 27:21), and a number of other scriptures (Deuteronomy 4:20; Isaiah 31:9; Ezekiel 22:18-22) appeal to this imagery as well.

The idea of a furnace is simple enough.  You make them really hot, and they melt and/or burn things.  That’s it.  If that doesn’t sound threatening or menacing enough, apparently there are normal furnaces, and then there are furnaces specifically intended for affliction (Isaiah 48:10).  These are furnaces that are specifically intended for suffering… because a normal furnace wouldn’t be good enough.  If you’re like me, a Furnace of Affliction probably doesn’t sound very becoming.  Of course, the prophets weren’t actually going to put people inside of a furnace, but it’s a powerful idea nonetheless.  Sometimes, when we’re going through things that cause us a great deal of pain or discomfort, it absolutely does feel like we’re being cooked alive in a hot piece of metal.  No kidding.  That’s how I tend to think about Year 1 in this PhD program.

It’s like that comic that has a dog that’s sitting in a house that’s on fire.  And the dog says, “This is fine.”

Maybe I’ll talk a bit about year 1 and then I’ll get into what I think God is doing in all this.

July 2017

Honestly, Year 1 kind of sucked.  I arrive on campus, ready to start my exciting journey as a scholar, and I make an F in my very first class.  The irony of that was my experience in the class itself.  It was a quantitative boot camp.  9 months of math condensed into 3 weeks, to get people ready for the math they’d do in a PhD program.  Mind you, this isn’t what I’m going to school for… this is like a football player warming up before the game.  Or a basketball player stretching before the match starts.  Technically, the program hasn’t even started yet… we’re just getting ready for the actual thing.

Everybody takes it.  Everybody passes it.  Obviously, it’s still a PhD level course, but it’s just to get people ready for their PhD coursework.

Man, this professor deflected my concerns the entire 3 weeks of the course.  “I’ve taught this class every summer for the past 5 years, and I’ve never failed any students,” he said.  “Don’t worry about the grade.  Just work hard.  That’s the only thing that matters.”  I don’t think you’re hearing me, man.  I have NO IDEA what you’re talking about in this course, so I don’t think I’m going to pass this final, which is 70% of our grade.  What kind of feedback is, “Don’t worry about the grade,”?  That’s whack.

I did work hard.  And I didn’t worry about the grade.  And I still failed.  I took that final, and I made an 8.  As in 8/100.  8%.  Heck, I would have preferred a 0.  If you get a zero, that basically means you drew a smiley face on your paper and walked out.  An 8 means you tried and 92% of what you did was wrong.

And I knew it, too!  If it looks like an F, sounds like an F, and feels like an F, doggonit, you’re going to get an F.  Trust your instincts.  It sucked.

What a miserable way to start grad school.  Wait, there’s more.

August 2017

Because I’m not ready for the ‘quantitative rigor’ of the PhD program, I basically take a semester of all math.  I don’t know if I was angrier about the fact that failing this 3-week summer class was going to potentially put me behind 1 year in my coursework (who wants to do an extra year in a 5-year program?), the fact that I was taking 18 credits (the maximum course load) when I was on academic probation and on the brink of getting dismissed from my program, or the fact that I was taking undergraduate classes, the first semester of my PhD program, and things still weren’t going well.  Either way, I was not happy.

I’m no stranger to busy weeks, for work, school, or otherwise.  When I was in undergrad, I probably did about 70 hours every week… provided, I was never, ever at risk of flunking out of undergrad.  And when I did 70-hour weeks in undergrad, I saw it reflected more in my performance.  I did consulting after graduating, so I had my share of busy work weeks there, too.  I did a few back to back 60-hour weeks.  Things usually dial down eventually though.  I think I maxed out at 93 hours in a week.  But again, that was just one week.  That’s not necessarily every week.

Not so for my 1^st semester.  I did 80+ hour weeks 14 weeks straight, and I woke up almost every single day thinking that would be my first and last semester in the PhD program.  And it sucked.  I woke up almost every morning with a sinking feeling of dread, feeling like nothing I could muster would be enough for that day.

I got dragged.  I haven’t seen grades that low since high school.  Just an absurd amount of F’s in a 14-week period.  Guys, you don’t understand.  Like, it was almost divine how badly school was going.  I’ve never had academic experiences, of any kind, that bad before in my life… mind you, I’m on academic probation, so this is literally the worst time for an academic meltdown.  It’s not like senior year of high school or college, where you’re basically coasting to the finish line.  I’m on academic probation, and I will be dismissed if my performance is not up to par at the end of the semester.  Literally the worst time to have a meltdown.  Not only that, but somehow, I was under the impression that I wasn’t allowed to sign up for the tutoring service because it was reserved for undergraduate students (false, kind of).  So, I was doing 80+ hours every week, pulling F’s, and things were not getting better.  Things improved, a lot, once I started making appointments for tutoring, but before that, yo, it was like a grandiose train wreck in slow motion.

I look back and laugh now, but in that moment, it sucked.  I was in the Furnace of Affliction.  This was going to be an awfully crappy story of how I flunked out of grad school, after just one semester.  And I felt like I was burning alive in a hot piece of metal.

Things worked out.  But it was a long 14 weeks.

January 2018

For the Spring, things pick up exactly where they left off.  Instead of 80+ hours, I’m probably doing closer to 70 now.  Beyond that, this time around, there’s no academic probation, so there’s a bit less pressure in that regard.  In general, the circumstances were far better.  This semester is heavy on reading though, since I’m enrolled in 3 seminars.  I’m responsible for about 300 pages of reading every week, in addition to about 75 pages of writing by the end of the semester.  And let me be clear: every Professor thinks their class is the most important class, so that’s always fun, when you’re reading 300 pages every week.

And I got dragged, again.  PhD programs are interesting, because your classes are absolutely tiny.  My biggest class was 4 students and my smallest class was 2 students.  Have you ever been in class that small, for 3 hours, with a Professor that you absolutely did not like?  Or maybe a Professor who isn’t particularly fond of you?  Or a 3-hour class that you didn’t have the opportunity to read for before hand… and you’re only in there with two or three other students?  Yeah, it’s definitely a hot seat, no pun intended.

Of the 3 seminars I had, 2 of them were from my department.  There are aspects of the PhD journey that mirror the private sector.  First impression are lasting impressions.  Their impression of you in Year 1 will largely color their view of you for the remainder of the program.  YES, there’s a lot of pressure.  There’s a lot riding on your performance in your classes, and if Professors think you’re a weak student, they may be less interested in working with you.  Similarly, everyone is doing brand management… every moment you’re in class, you’re trying to develop a reputation as an exemplary student.  The reality is though, quite frequently, you don’t always feel like a great student.  In my case, you’re coming off a semester where you almost flunked out of school, so you’re absolutely not feeling like a great student.

Either way, you will read those 300 pages every single week, and you will be ready to go when class starts.

March 2018

I was in the Furnace of Affliction.  And I looked like it, too.  No wonder I’ve lost 25 pounds this year.  One interesting thing about the Furnace of Affliction is that it’s socially isolating.  Most people, on any given day, are not being burned alive in a hot piece of metal.  Everybody is dealing with things, but my intuition is most people probably wouldn’t characterize their life situation as being in the Furnace of Affliction.  At some point, you just get tired of telling people about the furnace.  You want to be able to tell people that your life is sunshine and rainbows… you want to have awesome stories, like everyone else… you want to be able to have normal, lighthearted conversations with people, where you discuss life’s pleasantries.  But that’s not your life right now.  And pretending is exhausting.  At least for me, anyway.  It’s one of my least favorite things to do.  There’s a huge temptation to want to pull back.  Honestly, I was just getting tired of talking about being in the furnace.  It’s also tough to tell people who are praying for you that things aren’t really getting better.  It makes you want to avoid them, so you don’t have to revisit the same conversations over and over.

May 2018   

Somehow, you think with your effort, preparation, and investment, things will just work out at the end of the semester.  No such luck.  At best, my grades for the Spring were average.  At worst, they were below expectations.  In fact, I got a B- from the chair of the department.  Mind you, this is my research area.  This is what I’m in grad school for.  This is what I want to study, as a career.  You don’t get a trophy or certificate just for making it to the finish line.  No such luck.

Not only that, but because I got a B- in a class in my department, I’m actually on academic probation, again.  The second time in 10 months, I guess?  Dang.  Turn up the heat in the furnace.

Classes are over for the year, but I still feel like I’m getting roasted.  I had an hour and a half meeting with my research advisor not to long ago… it was basically 10 minutes of catching up and 80 minutes of getting dragged.  Oh, it was bad.  I was crying in his office… there was snot everywhere… he didn’t have any tissue… aw, man, it was bad.  I couldn’t handle it.  It was ‘Bend, Don’t Break’, for 10 months.  I held it together, for the most part.  He grilled me in that meeting, and I completely broke.  So much for first impressions.

I haven’t been able to face him ever since.  It’s going on 6 weeks.

June 2018

I wrote this piece in May, actually.  I didn’t know I’d have as many updates for this month as I do.  Unfortunately, I’ll have to save that for another post.  June brought an entirely new set of emotions, some of which I’m having difficulty processing.  Shame.  Embarrassment.  Numbness.  Probably more.

It’s tough, guys.  And I don’t know if, or when, it will get better.  In the interim, it’s probably good to know a little bit about the Furnace of Affliction.  A furnace can be used to do many things, but I’ll highlight just 2.

Function 1: Make things really, really hot

No surprises here, right?  Furnaces heat up metal.  That’s good because at room temperature, metal isn’t particularly easy to work with.  It’s fairly strong, and durable, but it isn’t always good at taking on new forms and new shapes.  On the other hand, when you heat it up, it becomes a lot more flexible.  In fact, if you’re feeling particularly adventurous, you can melt it down, poor it in a mold, and it can take on a completely different shape. You can actually heat it up, with the intention of transforming it into something completely different.  At room temperature, depending on the metal, that isn’t always easy to do.

The reality is, when you’re going through things, it affects you.  It changes you.  It shapes who you are as a person and can dramatically change your outlook on life.  I think about when my mom died.  That sucked, too.  But God shaped me a lot during that time.  If I wasn’t going through the trauma of that loss, I don’t know if I would have learned the lessons He was interested in teaching me.  Similarly, in this PhD program, it could be I need to spend a year, or more, getting dragged so I can learn some important lessons.  It’s painful.  But it’s also a furnace.  Getting roasted in a hot piece of metal doesn’t sound particularly glamorous, and it isn’t really supposed to be.

Function 2: Distill substances

Metals are abstracted by crude means.  In an ideal world, we would have a neat, tidy way of separating the gold, or bronze, and other valuables from the less desirable things they sometimes come with, but that isn’t always easy.  Even so, one distinguishing characteristic of different elements is the melting point.  Heating up something allows you to purify it and separate it from the substances you’re not interested in harvesting.

Within the context of the Furnace of Affliction, God can put us in the furnace to melt away the ‘undesirables’.  In my case, I don’t necessarily know what those things are.  Is it a self-reliance?  Is it an independence?  Is it pride?  I don’t really know, man.  I just know it’s hot in this furnace.  Well, that, and one other thing.  When I’m taken out the furnace, much like other substances, I’ll be a more refined version of my previous self.  The undesirables will be left at the floor of the furnace.  The most valuable and attractive elements will be what remain.  Those are the elements that endured the heat, persevered through the high temperature, and demonstrated the resilience that make them so attractive as substances.  That’s what we need, guys.  The other stuff compromises our value.

Until then, another day in the Beautiful Struggle.  Another chapter in the Furnace of Affliction.

“Here’s a trustworthy saying: ‘If we die with him, we’ll live with him; if we suffer with him, we’ll reign with him.’”

Nnamdi