I just know that—old scars can break open like fresh wounds and your unspoken broken can start to rip you wide open and maybe the essence of all the questions is: how in the holy name of God do you live with your one broken heart?
~ Ann Voskamp
Deliver me from sinking in the mire; let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters. Let not the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the pit close its mouth over me. Answer me, O Lord, for Your steadfast love is good; according to Your abundant mercy, turn to me. Hide not Your face from Your servant, for I am in distress; make haste to answer me. Draw near to my soul, redeem me; ransom me because of my enemies! You know my reproach, and my shame and my dishonor; my foes are all known to you. Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair. I looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.
~ David, in Psalm 69
Oh beloved, it is true.
Our souls contain our bodies. And, just as our bodies cannot fully contain our essence, they were never designed to hold our pain. So, in our trying to contain, contextualize, limit, and otherwise fix our pain, we make some of the greatest mistakes.
This fool of a writer has recently come up against some emotional and relational pain so deep, that it tears at my ability to hold on to sanity. Everything within me screams for relief. Along with all of this pain, then comes the ugly demons of self-pity and self-righteousness that make it nearly impossible for me to hear my way through the storms.
But, one of dangers of self-pity is not the idiotic wallowing, and aggrandizing of our own pain. The danger is insidious. It can actually lead us to denial of much of the things we need to process to be whole. And the problem comes when we dismiss our own pain because much of what we are experiencing has come from our own mistakes, and the pain we have caused others.
We sense that we deserve it so,
We dismiss it
We underestimate it
We cover it
We medicate it
We try to ignore it
We feel guilty that we feel it.
But thankfully, G_d is much better at getting us through things. We are actually pretty hamfisted when it comes to processing, mourning, and often just plain hurting.
The truth is, though, that pain does not need to balanced against other factors. It only needs to be experienced. Even the fact that we might even deserve some of the beating that life has given us, does not make pain any less painful – or any less valuable.
We often see pain as some sort of punishment to be avoided. Oh, do not be mistaken. This fool of a writer is not saying that we should purposefully invite it, or do things to hurt ourselves. Still, pain has an amazingly important purpose.
Can we see it?
Pain is horrible. We were never designed to go through it alone. We were never designed to contain it. And without SomeOne entering into it with us, we are in serious trouble. The truth is:
We have been abandoned, or
Betrayed,
Discarded,
Abused,
Misunderstood,
And it does not matter the extenuating circumstances. It is not selfish to feel hurt when we have been hurt.
And much of the things like this that happen to us, cut us to the core. We find ourselves bleeding out of the heart now broken and shattered by the things that have happened. We need help.
This is very good news.
What?
Yeah.
As we bleed, we need a transfusion. These are not little scrapes and bruises. These are mortal wounds. In our great loss, we need the volume to be replaced. And this really is where a Loving G_d, in the Person of Jesus Christ, is exactly Who we need.
Jesus is the G_d Who has been exactly where we are. He has felt exactly what we are feeling, and He has forged the path to victory. His blood has not just paid for the injustice. His blood provides the healing for our pain.
So, are you afraid to hurt, because you are afraid it might just kill you if you let it all out? This is a real risk if you do it on your own. You might just bleed out. But, if you let Him bleed into your pain… Yes. Here is a way through.
Oh beloved, it will still hurt. But, on the other side, is the life you are looking for. Tonight is your night. Time to let it hurt, with His blood replacing your own, as you let it all go.
Though the cross of Christ has been beautified by the poet and the artist, the avid seeker after God is likely to find it the same savage implement of destruction it was in the days of old. The way of the cross is still the pain-wracked path to spiritual power and fruitfulness. So do not seek to hide from it. Do not accept an easy way. Do not allow yourself to be patted to sleep in a comfortable church, void of power and barren of fruit. Do not paint the cross nor deck it with flowers. Take it for what it is, as it is, and you will find it the rugged way to death and life. Let it slay you utterly.
~AW Tozer
