Today was a hard day.
Today, I woke up with an ache in my chest that pulsated throughout the rest of my body, as though my heart was pumping blood tainted with pain. Today, a sense of loss is tangible-- an awareness of the fact that this fallen world is filled with goodbyes that I don't think we were originally designed to withstand. The realities of being so alone in a new city wear at my bones, bones that ache for a Home I haven't found yet. Today the weight of distance pulls at my limbs, and my legs want to run across oceans, and my arms want to stretch and stretch across thousands of miles until they can reach the souls I'm missing so very much, until I can hold them close to me and not let go. Today my heart mourns being let go by a heart I wanted to hold onto-- a pain I was doing so well at not feeling by refusing to acknowledge it, by covering it in thin coatings of anger and bitterness and nonchalant utterinngs of "good riddance".
Jesus tried to nudge me towards gently uncovering it the other day. As I sat in my living room and flipped to the Gospel of John in hopes of meeting with and refreshing my picture of Jesus, I asked Him to meet me in a tangible way. The Bible that I was using had a previous owner, and that previous owner just happened to be the person I had been doing so well not thinking about. I noticed a word that must have been underlined by him, and I felt a tiny twinge. Don't, my mind told my heart. Don't even go there. Then I heard another Voice, one that didn't belong to me, say, "Hey, you should pray for him." Pray for him? At this time? Nuh-uh. Wasn't gonna. First off, my fleshy side wants him to suffer. Not badly, I'm not going to wish ill upon him or anything, but I want him to feel to proper consequences of his actions, and apparently I think I'm the universal administrator of justice. #JesusHaveYourWay #MostlyWithHimThough #BecauseClearlyHeNeedsIt #AndI'mSoGracious. …Whoops. Jesus and I had to have a little chat about that one. And second, anyone who's ever taken Jesus up on that "Pray for you enemies and bless those who curse you" thing knows that it's a sneaky, sneaky trick. What it does is work on your own heart, drawing out the anger and bitterness. What it does is soften you. And I had no interest in being softened just then.
The aforementioned person and I both both enjoy the X-Men franchise. He's always been a big Magneto fan, and I've always appreciated Dr. X. That should tell you a lot about our personalities, I suppose. I particularly resonate with the young Charles Xavier artfully portrayed by James McAvoy in the most recent reboots. In the last film, Days of Future Past, there's a plot line where Charles has regained the use of his legs through a new serum-- a serum that happens to also quell his powers. A disgusted Wolverine asks him, "You gave up your powers so you could walk?" And Charles shoots back, "I gave up my powers so I could sleep," his voice cracking as desperate eyes betray what he's really running from. Oh Charles! I wanted to hug that fictional character, because I knew. For so much of my life, I've been there. Xavier's power is telekinesis, which includes hearing the thoughts of others, which means hearing, and thus feeling, their pain. I've always felt very deeply. I understand wanting to run from that. I've always had an interesting sort of gift where walking with others in their pain isn't very burdensome for me--but dealing with my own pain is.
How much time have I spent in the past weeping, overwhelmed with pain with no end in sight, begging God to make it stop? The past five years I've worked towards becoming a person who's not overwhelmed or controlled by my emotions, who doesn't let them move me towards unhealthy actions. I've made very steady progress and I'm so proud of myself. Much of that has come from the realization that the deep shame I carried, the internal voices constantly telling me how unlovable and awful I was, amplified pain to unnatural and unbearable levels. A break up is always going to hurt, but for me it would turn into You ruin everything, you're so hard to love, and everyone is going to leave you. When you believe those kinds of words, of course it's going to be overwhelming. I've been learning to acknowledge there's a huge difference between guilt ("I did something bad") and shame (I am something bad), and now I can catch myself when I jump straight to the latter. Recognizing and correcting those thought patterns has been revolutionary for me. But I guess recently I've also started employing another tactic: the "hardened heart" method. In some ways it's been a welcomed respite--I am far more even-keeled than I've ever been. But of course, I'm also less compassionate and less trusting than I've been. I also get angrier much more frequently--an emotion that used to be reserved for very rare occasions has started to become a constant, low-grade presence in my days. Bitterness. Lack of grace for others. Far less concerned with actively loving on others, far more concerned with self-preservation and what I'm getting out of relationships--an immature sort of love that I don't think can be called love at all. The numbing effect has come at a cost, but I haven't felt eager to stop paying it. So when Jesus met me like I asked Him to and tried to nudge me in the direction of softening, I wasn’t having it. I thanked Him for His input, and informed him that I was disinclined to acquiesce to His request at this time. Ha.
God is not quite so easily deterred, however. I've found that when you sincerely pray to be molded into the person that you were created to be, God will answer that prayer--even when you're not feeling cooperative and not stoked on that path that means taking.
So, God allowed me to find a slightly more straightforward route through my hardened hard. A couple nights ago, I happened to come across a picture of the discussed person (don’t ask me how/ it’s whatever/ stop judging me) … and in said picture, he had his arm around a girl who he’s apparently dating now. That cool, calm, detached, hardened heart thing I was talking about? Yeah. I totally lost that. It’s been five weeks. Five weeks ago we were talking about a potential future, and now he’s just happily hanging with a beautiful girl who I’m sure totally takes his mind off of any missing he would otherwise have been doing? It was like a punch to the gut. A hard one. I’d kind of figured he might be talking to this girl, but seeing it with my own eyes was a completely different experience. I was horrified. I was angry. I started feeling anxious. And then, I hurt.
The reality of the loss started to sink in: the loss of the person who’s been my closest, most consistent friend and confidant for the past three years, the one who I shared my thoughts and fears and hopes with. The one who knows my secrets and who held me when I cried. The person I laughed with, played with, fought with, prayed with… even if what we had was complicated, it was real, and I’d actually been hoping for a time when it wouldn’t be complicated anymore—where it could be straight forward, light-hearted, easy, and good. But we couldn’t agree on how to get there, so we had to say goodbye and let go. And he's already found someone else. Now he's getting to know her mind and heart. Now he's kissing her. Now she’s going to get to celebrate his birthday with him next week. And maybe he’ll fall in love with her. Maybe he’ll choose her as his One. My stomach twisted and I felt like I might throw up. I was choked with tears and I started to feel overwhelmed. I wanted to run from it, run somewhere, run anywhere, I wanted my hardened heart back…
Then the words spoken to me years ago by a most beloved mentor were brought back to the center of my mind:
"I think I have a word from God for you. I think God's telling you that you need to embrace pain."
Um… What was that? Almost all of the words that were spoken by this mentor, Maurice, resonated deeply with me and carried peace with them, but these did not. I did not understand these words. I was coming off of one of the hardest years of my life thus far, and just barely holding it together. Pain and I were already pretty damn intertwined. I couldn't imagine that God wanted me to live in that state constantly, much less accept more pain—I had already reached my threshold. So I refused the word, because I didn't understand. But oh, God is tender and God is good. Years later, finally ready, the soil of my heart was able to receive it last night:
Embrace the pain. I've finally realized that God wasn't trying to tell me to take more pain when He said that, God was lovingly trying to tell me not to be so terrified of the pain. You've probably been through a situation in which the dread of the experience ended up being significantly worse than the experience itself. Well, now I've realized the other thing that coupled up with shame to amplify pain in my life: the fear of it. When something hurtful would happen, my heart would seize up in an attempt to protect me from pain, but in reality, that clenching fear would turn what might have been a quick, sharp pain that passed fairly easily into a drawn-out, agonizing experience. Perhaps because I feel so deeply, my instinct when I see pain approaching has been to thrash with wild and desperate eyes, fighting, begging to not have to go through it. Now God is putting His hands so tenderly on me, holding me, encouraging me to see that maybe I've been causing much more pain than necessary by dreading and fighting. God was trying to ease my pain, not multiply it. Wow.
So today, I did not try to run from pain. I embraced it, and I treated myself with tenderness.
Today, I did not judge myself or chastise my heart when it ached. I honored the validity of my feelings. I didn't let my mind carry my heart to the possibilities of what could happen tomorrow--tomorrow will have enough troubles of it's own. But today, I let myself mourn. I was gentle on myself when I slept in longer than I meant to. I reached out to dearest friends with honesty, appreciating the privilege of being lifted in prayer by brothers and sisters who care. I nourished my body with food when I didn't feel like eating. I stood in the sunshine and began making a list of things that I'm grateful for. I signed up for a workshop that I think will be very good for me. I finally got myself to a yoga studio and practiced, something I've known I should do for quite awhile. And when tears wanted to come in a heart-opening pose, I let them come without judgment. I cuddled with my dog, I saw a movie with friends, and when waves of sadness hit me during the move, I accepted them, leaned my head on my friend's shoulder, and let them pass. I held onto their hugs for extra long as we were leaving. And I started shifting my focus away from my own emotional experience and towards how I can build the Kingdom and bless and love on others.
Pain is a reality in our broken world. Just because something hurts doesn't necessarily mean it's bad--sometimes we grow though it. Sometimes we need it. Sometimes it is simply the by product of living in a world we weren't originally designed for, sometimes terrible things happen and we can't possibly accept that any good would justify them because the loss is so tragic. I do not want to downplay that. But even then, we aren't left hopeless. Even in the darkest nights, when everything is broken and burned to the ground, there's a God who revels and delights in making things new, in bringing things back to life in a better way than we could imagine, in making beauty from ash and dust. I’m ready to stop being so scared of hurting, and embrace pain as a healthy emotion that’s a part of living and loving. Tomorrow might end up being a hard day, too. But I trust that as I hand over control and submit to a God who Loves, who doesn’t delight in grieving our hearts but desires our deepest good, He is are more than capable of guiding, equipping, and holding me through whatever it takes to complete the good work that He started in me. I’m ready to run with Jesus, ready to carry light and life and love. I’m ready embrace the ache when it comes, let it pass when it’s time, and to stop being afraid. I'm ready to let Perfect Love cast out all my fear, so I can stop being held captive by fear of pain. I'm ready. And I'm grateful.
How precious it is to be so deeply, wholly, and profoundly loved by a mighty, intimate, and tender God who loves us so extravagantly-- even through the pain, even on the hard days. And how wonderful that through those things, He will bring beauty. From the ashes we give Him, He will make beautiful things. And in that, we'll see His goodness. In that, we will see His Glory.
