dailydatewithgod

We identify hurt in our lives from the pain points. Whether they be physical, emotional or spiritual they present is with a choice of how we want to approach it.  We can look at the hurt in our lives as a message about how we perceive the pain.  We can look at our hurt as though we are victims of circumstance.  We can look at the hurt as some sort of existential punishment  or sign of us being wrong or bad.  Our approach sometimes depends on the gravity of our hurting.  One of the more challenging experiences in my life has come by evaluating how I handle the hurt I experience in my life.  It seems to be the difference between having pain and suffering from the pain.  When I am willing to see me hurting as a call for attention and not a sign of my value or role in life, there is room for my heart to enter.  I remember having an experience on one of my daily dates with God where I was imagining the person of Jesus comforting me in his arms.  As my head lay on his chest I saw his heart surrounded by thorns.  It is a depiction I have seen in statues known as the sacred heart of Jesus.  I asked if I could touch one of the thorns.  He said yes.  They were very sharp.  I asked him if it hurt.  He said matter-of-factly, “only when I believe it is real.”  The more I create story and validate it about my pain the more hurting I experience.  I often think of this experience with Jesus and ask myself when I am hurting, what part of this is not real?  What could the pain be here to teach me instead of hurt me?  It is not easy and I do not default to it but I am steadfast in my belief that I am here in this life to learn from everything and everyone.  God encourages me to check in with my heart because I may be getting lost in the unreal story I have created about my pain and lost sight of the lesson.  Just as those thorns were piercing Jesus’ heart, so too can my heart pierce the perception of my mind to open up space to move from hurting to hoping to healing.