Have you ever felt like you’re opening your chest right at the sternum, exposing your heart? Feeling like the whole world has your heart under a microscope and could take pieces of it at a whim? Have you felt that simultaneously you want to cover up anything that is visible to anyone out there? To run, but not being able to escape? To hide, but not be hidden? To scream, but the sound won’t escape? Hurt. It is real and unavoidable. It is part of life. Something to get through, not over. Something to deal with, not cover up.
Hurt is so open ended. It won’t stay within defined parameters. It has an origin, but not a real beginning and end. It is like mist that slips out of your grasp when you want to take hold of it. It won’t fit into any box. Its presence comes hovering when you don’t expect, intruding, probing, disrupting. Often unjustified. Seldom deserved. There are no answers to the why questions. No justification, no rationale. No excuse can take the intensity of the pain away. You can only accept it, live through it, pray through it, work through it, hurt through it….
I wish I had the magic answer to this. I want to analyze, to solve, to understand. I want to package it and file it away, but I’ve come to realize that doing that is not the solution. Sometimes, I just need to pause in the pain and let myself feel it – all of it – all the emotion. I need to remind myself that it is okay to not feel okay. It is okay to hurt. There is no need to rush through, because if I feel superficially, I will only heal superficially, but if I feel deeply, the healing will come from the core and last.
I need to remember that I am not alone in the hurt. God hurts with me. Like a mother and father knows that their child must fall before she would be able to ride a bicycle, but desperately wishes that it needn’t be the case, my Heavenly Father feels with me, but also sees the end picture. He can see the joy at the end of the road where I will enjoy the wind in my hair as I fly past. He sees with a perspective that I don’t have. He can see the growth, the beauty and the results that lies ahead, beyond the muddled now.
I think that the secret to enduring the hurt might just lie in the realization of God’s boundless love for us. Lisa Bevere said that God doesn’t love us equally, because equality implies measurability and His love is not measurable. No, God loves us uniquely. His love has no measure of breadth or height. It is endless. There is no rival to His love for us. He loves us more than the sand on the beach and the stars in the sky. He loves us uniquely, because He created us uniquely and has a unique destination He personally designed for each one of us.
He loved us so much that He gave His life for us. Jesus said that no-one has greater love than this – than to lay down his life for his friends…and then He says that He is our friend (John 15:13). Jesus hurt with Martha and Mary when Lazarus died. He felt their pain because it mirrored His pain. He hurt deeply with them and He wept with them (John 11:35). When a woman soaked Jesus feet in her tears and others condemned her for it, Jesus saw her profound brokenness, was filled with love for her and drew her close to His heart, forgiving her, loving her, freeing her (Luke 7). I think when Jesus sees us hurting, He is overwhelmed with love for us, His heart breaks with ours and He reaches out to us to draw us close in His loving embrace.
Beautiful child of the Most High God, you are loved with an everlasting love (Jer 31:3). You are treasured, your are cherished and you are valued. In this world we will have trouble, but Jesus says to take heart, to be encouraged, because He has overcome the world (John 16:33) and He will wipe away the tears from our eyes and heal the hurts of our hearts. It is hard to be patient and endure, but remember, it will pass. God who is calling us to Him, is faithful and trustworthy to fulfill every single thing He has promised us (1 Thess 5: 24) and He will surround us with His presence every step of the way.
[Collage created using Pinterest images]
