The Walking Wounded

It is a sad fact of life that you can try your best and still fail.  You can love hard and still be betrayed.  You can give, trust, care, be genuine and kind, live with integrity… and still be crushed by people who do not hold the same values.  You can follow all the rules and still come up a loser.

So what do we do with this cold reality?  How do we live in a harsh world that wants to crush our spirits and devour our hope?

How?!

This is a question I’ve struggled with almost my entire life.  How to deal… how to heal.  How to not let the world- and all of its atrocities- change me.   I’m afraid it already has.  I am broken, wounded, damaged.  I’m hurt, betrayed, alone. Confused and frustrated.

I know pain.  Pain has barged in on me unannounced and made itself at home.  I’ve worn it like an old, heavy winter coat in the middle of what seemed like springtime for everyone around me.  I see the lines that pain has put on my face and feel the scars it has left in my heart. It has suffocated me like a violent hurricane, hungry to steal my last breath and take me under forever.

How?!

Breathe in. Breathe out. Pray. Breathe in. Breathe out.  Write.  Breathe in.  Breathe out. Accept.

Accept pain.  Accept it.  Accept that pain, while unpleasant, and even excruciating at times, is a very real part of this existence.  My measure of pain is part of my journey.  I don’t like it.  I don’t want it.  But, perhaps, in some way, somehow, for some reason, I need it.

I need pain to realize I am loved bigger and better than any human heart or effort could love.  I need pain to help me remember it’s not all about me.  I need pain to connect with other hurting hearts.  I need pain to practice my ability to surrender to a being higher than myself (yes, God).  I need pain to teach me how to love when I don’t get anything in return.  And, I need pain to help me remember that this is not my home.  I’m only traveling through on a journey to Heaven, where all my pain will be erased.

If I believe that what He said is true, I must live accordingly.  Like David, I must say to myself, “Why art thou downcast, oh my soul?” (Psalm 43:5).  I must remember that my response to my pain may be more important than the circumstance that facilitated it in the first place. 

Pain is not something to be avoided.  It is to be expected…. maybe even embraced as a blessing; a blessing so rich and so deep that words could not describe. Maybe, just maybe, my question should not be “How?” but “What?”  What good will come of this? What am I learning?  What needs to happen next?  What will I say when I meet someone who is going through a similar trial?

The things of this world- even important things and important people- are not lasting.  This life that we know is temporal; not meant to last.
 
“If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you” (John 15:19).

Photo credit: http://www.recovery.org

the walking wounded, pain, pain is a blessing, pain sanctifies us, Bible and life struggles

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