My near-19-month old is playing with her milk more than she is drinking it. Thank goodness it is in the sippie cup, and not everywhere else, cause we've already been down that road this morning.
Do you ever have moments in your life where something from your past creeps out and rears it ugly head? I have this issue all the time, and usually it's the mild stuff. You know, like, when I did something that was really embarrassing or not very smart, like the time I decided I was going to prove that the ball wasn't going through the ring in the science experiment in high school. That would be the experiment where you use heat to expand things. In this case a ball on the end of a rod and a ring on the end of a rod. I'll just say my teacher had to write up an accident report and I couldn't use my thumb for a week or two. I was reminded of this goof when I tried to clean a piece of ground sirloin off of the gas stove from which I had just removed the pan and turned the burner off. Still smh.
And then there are the parts of my past that are really ugly, really scary, and I avoid them at all costs because the pain is more than I can tolerate on a day-to-day basis. I shared something with a friend that I haven't opened up about in years. I do this for a reason. Okay, several reasons, but I'm not sure that I can even spell those all out. I should have gone to counseling. I still should go to counseling. But I'm stubborn.
I wasn't expecting the pain to come flooding back though. I was just trying to put things in perspective. Haha. It's funny how God works, cause His ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. So when the pain came rushing over me, and I couldn't ward it off anymore, I just let the hurt sink in. I held His hand, and hurt, and cried. I sat in my car listening to Oceans by Hillsong (Please listen to this song if you are struggling.) and let the tears roll down my mascara-ed lashes and over my powdered and blushed cheeks into the folds of my cerulean scarf. (Thank you Jesus for the mercy of water-proof mascara, despite how shallow that sounds.) And when I couldn't sit in my car any longer, I dried the tears and walked through the brisk cold to my trig exam, and then my social diversity in education class where all of us were on welfare as we tried to come up with a budget and learn about what it means to be poor and/or homeless, and then finally my American history class where we learned about why the U.S. felt that it was not a good idea to join in WWII prior to being bombed at Pearl Harbor. And then I got back in my car and let the hurt roll in like waves. Except at this point my blood sugar had plummeted and I really was a wreck.
See here's the thing about pain. It demands to be felt. (This would be very similar to the John Green quote, "That's the thing about pain...It demands to be felt.") But pain is not just a feeling. It is a place where something inexplicable and extreme has happened and we don't know how to come to grips with it. It is the site where something has torn apart the very fabric of who we are and taken something from us with neither permission nor hope of restoration of our own volition. It is deep, it is consuming, and it is relentless. It can be hell...if we let it. So the answer to keeping the pain at bay is to avoid it - at all costs if necessary. And I don't know about you, but I do the same with what caused the pain in the first place.
But here's the thing about God. He knows pain. He's suffered it. He's endured it. He knows how deep its rabbit hole goes and He knows how consuming it can be. He knows what it's like at oh-dark-thirty when all hope seems lost and without reason or cause. He's been the victim.
He's also conquered it.
He knows the way out.
It's through it.
He's been though hell and lived to tell about it.
But the "it" isn't about hell itself, "it" is about who He is regardless of hell.
He is love.
He is mercy.
He is grace.
He is hope.
He is peace.
He is joy.
He is faithful.
He is gentle.
He is kind.
He is patient.
He is good.
He is community.
He is mighty.
He is wise.
He is beautiful.
God is big and God is good. And those two things cover over any pain hell's fury may bring against us.
So today, I have been rescued. I cried for help, and He met me there. He held me there. He loved me there. Today, I am evidence of who He is. What matters is not my perspective, but His. And He died for me and rose for me to have access to that glorious perspective. Here's a thought: God's love will match our pain, our guilt, our shame, and then some to show us He how much He loves us. It's not about where we fall short; it's about who He is and who He says we are.
