Fight for your life

There’s something visceral about emotional pain. It can take on a life of its own. If it’s not dealt with quickly and in a healthy way, it can convince us that the situation causing the pain will never stop, that we’ll never stop feeling the way we do right now. Right now seems to be ripping us to shreds. The life of our pain becomes like a parasite, feeding off our emotions, our spirit, then our energy and health. While the pain feeds, we look to fill the voids it is leaves behind – we pursue a seemingly unattainable and illusive hope.

Sometime later, weeks, months or even years, it seems like there’s nothing left of us – all hope seems to have dried up with all the tears we’ve shed. Life is too difficult to bear. The decision to stop the pain is left in our hands and leaves us little choice. We’ve tried everything we know to stop it – therapy, stuffing our feelings down, maybe alcohol, maybe drugs, maybe a little cut here and there. All these things end up being an anchor and, while they helped for a few minutes or even hours, the pain only became worse afterward. We tell ourselves what we’ve been thinking for a long time: “I wish I was dead.”

But we don’t really want to die, do we? We don’t want to live … this way … but we don’t want to die. We want the pain to end. We want someone to fill us, to understand and to love us. We need someone to hold us – someone who understands without our having to explain it. What we really want is to live – not survive – but thrive.

I promise you that there is One who knows, understands and loves us without condition. God never lets a hurt go to waste. He is waits for us to acknowledge Him, to invite Him into our lives. From the moment we began to suffer, He waits for us to call out to Him. His Son, knows all too well our suffering – He suffered for our eternal life. One thing I do know from experience is this: what feels as if it will last forever will not, no matter what our feelings or logic tell us. He has plans for each of us; an early death is not part of His plan. All we have to do is call out His Name and believe. Fight for life.

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.” Psalm 46:1-3