Pain Still Hurts

I’ve written a ton about the hope that has come through my pain. So many life changing blessings have risen from the ashes of my personal inferno and I am eternally grateful for each one of these. So let me start by saying I am not in any way minimizing or negating the thankfulness I have for the change of course my life has taken. But I also feel there’s a missing link in my journey that I haven’t spoken much about, mostly because it’s not something that’s easy for me to articulate. And yet it’s something that needs to be said - pain still hurts.

With pain comes, well, pain. Not acknowledging it is like refusing to properly care for an open wound. You can act as if the damage isn’t there but you’ll eventually bleed out or succumb to infection. You can simply bandage it and this may treat your ailment for a limited amount of time but at some point you have to rip off the covering and allow it to breathe. It’s the only way to heal.

So many of us (I’m raising my hand super high here!) start by denying that something hurts. This is the first natural stage of grief, right? We rationalize, justify, create disillusioned scenarios in our heads because we don’t want to believe in our hearts that whatever we’re sitting in is real. We put a Band-Aid on a hemorrhaging gash but that’s no more effective than trying to dam a river with some glued together popsicle sticks.

This photo is from a time when my little one hit her head on the corner of the wall. Did she hold back her tears, slap some coverup on it and forge ahead as if everything was fine? NO! She whaled, let the tears flow freely, acknowledged that her forehead was throbbing and came to us for comfort and help. As parents who love her with every fiber of our beings, we jumped into action and made that booboo better. She still sports a small scar. It doesn’t stop her from continuing to live her little life, but she is definitely more cognoscente of running into walls as she goes on her merry way. Oh, the simple things we can learn from the honesty of children.

What we are facing IS real whether we acknowledge it or not and it’s not going away on it’s own. It’s actually not going away at all. The things that hit us the hardest are permanent and we can’t change the fact that they happened. What we can do is admit that these pivot points in our lives hurt - bad. We can allow ourselves to feel the paralyzing sting of the agony and go all the way down to the depths of our emotions where we accept the truth of our situation. This place is scary, dark and lonely but it’s also the place where healing begins. We find clarity at the bottom and we find hope on the way back up. What happened isn’t erased, the scar still remains and we are changed by the experience, but there’s a salve that has been applied and restoration can begin.

This healing isn’t painless. It will require you to lean on the grace and strength of God while trusting that His ways are good and that His will is perfect. We need to know that He IS the Great Physician, peeling back each layer of damaged skin to reveal the healthy but sensitive flesh underneath. The process is arduous and relapse is almost inevitable. This isn’t a ‘one-and-done’ situation. Something will trigger a memory of the person you lost, the new limited way that your body functions will make you long for your old abilities at times, an innocent conversation will incite flashbacks of that sinful habit you used to be held captive to. Grief lingers in the shadows of the soul, but it also gives us ample opportunities to refine our reactions and move into the light.

Don’t avoid it, feel it. Don’t regret it, learn from it. Don’t become stuck in it, push through it. There is peace on the other side. Not some inner peace that we are capable of conjuring up within ourselves, but a peace that passes all understanding extended as a gift that only a loving God can give. And this version of peace, my sweet friends, is packaged tenderly in His amazing grace.

We also need to know that God isn’t simply waiting for us on the other end of this, hoping that we find the grit to make it out so He can begin His acts of love. He reacts just like we did when our baby girl hit her head. His jumps into action at the sound of the bang, wipes away our heavy tears, and wraps His loving arms around our shaking shoulders every step of the way. So seek Him to cast out your fear and believe that He will help you face your pain head on. Let it hurt, it needs to. But also see the promise in the flames. God WILL walk you through the fire and He WILL hold you up on the other side.