Just sit in it...
That’s the last thing anyone wants to do when they are in pain
When grief, heartache, trauma, bitterness, and all of the other junk churn in our soul
When we’re bleeding out with hurt...
We want to outrun it, outwork it, outdistract it, move forward... move far enough away so the aches become blotted out by the past...
At least I do
I want to rationalize my grief
Ignore my trauma
distract myself from the brokenness
shortcut the painful emotions...
But I am becoming more and more aware that Jesus just sits in it...
And weeps..
He hangs on a cross and lets the nails get driven into His hands
And He cries out to God
He doesn’t avoid pain
He doesn’t suppress grief
He doesn’t busy himself to distract himself
He sits in it
He hangs there
He accepts it
He is human through it all
He doesn’t call down angels to change the bloody scene of the cross...
He sings a psalm and feels it all
And He is with us today.
Deeply present.
Deeply present in our pain, our hurts, our blood, and our tears
He isn’t diverting His gaze when we look at him with hurt in our eyes
Jesus doesn’t change the subject when we vent our pain
He doesn’t leave the room when things get hard
He doesn’t send us to voicemail when we call on him
He doesn’t censor us when we come to Him raw and shattered
He is in the pain... when we are in the pain
Because He is always with us... through the dark night and the joyful morning
If Jesus is with us in our pain, I think we can also be with Him in our pain
We can sit quietly with the Lord in our despair, our bitterness, our disappointment, our tangled thoughts, our triggered bodies and minds...
In this place we can let ourselves feel the things we have been scared to let ourselves feel
Whether they are right or wrong
Because Jesus wants us.. All our feelings, however raw, or misguided, or rooted in hurt that they are...
I think so often Jesus is sitting with the real us.. the real stuff going on in our soul..
And we would find healing to come and sit with him there too
Because when you numb the pain, you numb everything you feel, not just the pain, but all of your emotions
When you run from how you really feel, your life becomes an exhausting race from yourself
When you distract yourself from the hard stuff, you end up addicted to distraction, and it controls you.
So Jesus sits with us. In the mess of it all.
And gently. Ever so quietly. He embraces us when we come and sit in it too.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” - Jesus