Allowing the Pain Room to Breathe

I know, you are all shocked that I'm writing again so soon after my last blog. It's so untypical of me. :)

I don't have much to say though the Lord is constantly reinforcing things in my life. I am amazed at how He's changed me. I am amazed and the security I've found in Him and in who I am in Him. Any sign of hurt or pain in my life meant it would get stuffed and I would try to ignore it. I built up a wall to keep people from hurting me, but really it doesn't work. The hurt still hurts, I just stuffed it below my emotions and tried not to deal with the reality of it.

A while back the Lord taught me to live in reality. It's easy to slip away into a fantasy world of movies, tv, books, whatever it was that kept you from dealing with what seemed to be a grim or boring reality. It was never drugs for me, praise the Lord. It was never alcohol. It was more movies and tv to cover the pain. But the Lord convicted me that I always at some point had to come back to reality, so I might as well stay there and deal with things head on as opposed to putting them off.

It had been a while since I'd been made fun of for my beliefs. Usually i don't take those things too personally, but that morning there had been someone else who had seemed to believe some rumors about me that were untrue and she was allowing it to affect the way she interacted with me and a friend of mine. That had hurt because I thought she knew better than to believe rumors, and I didn't understand why she hadn't talked to me about it to find out the truth. So being made fun of was kind of the last straw it took. I felt my emotions coming to the surface in front of my family and i knew for a short time i had to stuff them until I was in a safe place. However, I kept them stuffed a little too long and my heart was hardened to everything around me, my best friend, her family, my dog, everything. I hadn't felt that in a while. I don't like it. I can literally feel a hardening in my chest. Everything tightens and the emotions shut down. It closes everyone out. I didn't care about anything or anyone because i was so intensely focused on being apathetic. I really needed to allow the emotions to come to the surface and to release them into the hands of a Loving Father. He really does want to take our pain. He really does want to hold us as we cry. He really does want our hearts to remain open to Him and to others.

Finally i allowed my heart to open, the pain to surface, and my emotions to express themselves. I allowed myself to cry and release the hurt. Crying is not for sissys. I don't know who ever came up with that idea but it's a lame one. Crying is a God given gift to release the pain and to allow our hearts to remain plyable and open to others and more importantly to Him. When we stuff our emotions we're saying "I don't trust You with this Lord. I don't trust You to handle my pain. I don't trust that Your way of healing is the best. I'll handle it myself thank You." Guess what.... our way is never better than God's. He puts these things into place for a reason. He wants our best and pushing our emotions down is not our best. If we want to become more like Him and more whole in Him, we will have to deal with them at some point. The avoidance game never works for long. As a second degree black belt in Tang Soo Do, we are taught that you can only block someone a couple times before we have to move in and attack. We have to have the same attitude with pain. We may have to stuff it until it can safely be expressed, but then we need to face it head on. We need to allow God's process for healing to soothe our spirits, allow the pain some breathing room, open our emotions, and heal our hearts.