Living through the Pain

God affirms us, making us a sure thing in Christ, putting his Yes within us. By his Spirit he has stamped us with his eternal pledge -- a sure beginning of what he is destined to complete.—2 Corinthians 1:21-22 msg

      

     I was driving home yesterday after typing the message about Father's Love,  and although my head was hurting and my stomach was in knots, I felt that I had not really gone deep enough. The Spirit seemed to be nudging me to go deeper into the thoughts I was writing. I felt like I had only scratched at the surface but had not peeled back the layers yet. The Spirit did not seem to be challenging my thoughts on Father's love but actually speaking to pain in our lives.

     Now this may not speak to some of you out there and I am not sure if many will understand what I am going to say this time but I am really going to rely on the Spirit to take me to  the depth of this topic so that we can get into the reality of Feeling pain. The pain that I am talking to is not the pain of a physical injury. That can be a symptom of the internal hurt that you feel. A physical injury may lead to the intense feeling of misery. However, it is not nearly as caustic to the individual as some injuries that they will deal with. Job knew pain. He was rich but had all his riches taken away. He had many children but they were all taken as well. He was given boils all over his body immediately following those other loses ensuring that he understood what total loss means. Satan struck him with everything a man can be hit with.

     So let's talk about real pain. That kind that seeps into every core portion of your soul. You want to hide in a corner with the lights out and wish that you were not even there. The cries of your soul are for release from this mortal body and yet you cannot escape from what seems the intolerable torment of your seemingly failed existence. You hate with a simmering rage everything that is you. You cannot seem to come to terms with hope or your meaningless being. Deep within you, is that little tiny worm that gnaws at the very fabric of what little sanity seems to be left to you, while your thoughts keep insisting that you are a worthless pile of dung. Your depression; it seems to drag you deeper into a bottomless pit of the purest blackness that not even a sunburst will penetrate. You have done all you can to get out of this quagmire but your apathetic mind has left your body numb to any and all sensations. Truly, you exist. Yet, you do not live. How can you with all that pain blinding your thoughts and holding you prisoner to another wasted and futile day of your pathetic time on endless merry go round we call life. You even think about ways to exit, to end all this suffering and although you have plans...you know within yourself that you are afraid to actually end it. Truth is, you are to much of a coward to take that path out of this life. This causes you to spiral deeper into that pit of self hatred that only a few will ever really know. You want to cry but even the sweet release of tears are withheld from such a retch as you. And all the time you are feeling these feelings of torment, that little voice in your head keeps telling you that you are worthless. A busted human who is not even worth saving. It tells you that you should just end everything because you are not loved nor lovable. You will never know any value or worth. How could you...you know how despicable you are and you KNOW all of your past failures. That voice lists them to you, describing the failed loves, the cowardice's, the lack of trust, the rape (you know you wanted to be raped or molested it will tell you), the lies you told to yourself and everyone you know (trying to build a self worth when there is nothing to build upon, the voice will say). That voice laughs at your pathetic attempts to deny your failing will and your attempt to believe you actually have some worth to someone. There is NOTHING for you nor NO ONE who will ever believe in you. You cannot even love or believe in yourself. You deserve every rotten and detestable event in your life. You try to scream but no sound comes from within you. All sound seems to be removed as you are finally drained of all seeming sanity within your soul....it is all pure black. There is no light, no feeling, no sound, nothing....just total emptiness of being. You are alive but YOU are DEAD. You feel SOULLESS. The very heart seems to be jumping out of your chest and you are either curled in a fetal position or lost consiousness; not even asleep, no that would be a relief. I feel that I have no more words to describe the fullness of despair and pain, yet I do not feel that I have touched all of it. Yet for this time I have no words to write to enhance or express the rest of the feelings.

     So I will tell you that even when these points do come...there will also come a point that you will have a choice to make. To live or to give up. You can give up and quit if you want...that will either lead you to insanity or it  will lead you to taking your life and perhaps others as well. Or you can choose to live again. Sounds easy, well it isn't. Job was stripped bare to the bone. He lost everything but what he did not lose was faith in a loving Father. God was watching. And at the right moment He interceded for His child. Now Job could have quit. He could have cursed God and died as his own wife was telling him to do. However, Job stood firm on the promise that God would be faithful. And Father was faithful. He returned everything to Job and more so that in the end, Job was wealthier in all things in his life. We each can listen to that lying little voice who will say that you have no worth. That attacks when you are in your worst moments in life. It will come with words of despair and failure. Words that will strip you of all your self worth. Words to encourage you to quit. Yet, that is not of God. Father does not come to you with words of despair and failure. He will not attack your person. He loves His children. So, to each person comes the moments in time that are pivotal in how we are to continue with life. Will we look up from our weakness and cry out to Father? This is  what we see so strongly in the Psalms. David crying out to Father with pleas for mercy and deliverance. Or will we accept the curses that satan is trying to lay upon our hearts? I have been through the fires of hell on earth that satan visits upon each of us. If you do not believe that hell exists, then you are truly blessed and should live in a continuous song of praise and thanksgiving to our Father. However, if you are like the 99.999% of us who have lived upon this earth for any amount of time, then you will understand that we do live in a never ending cycle of trials designed to test and strengthen our faith in our God.  He is faithful to save. We must not listen to satan's little voice whispering of our humanity and carnal failures. We must allow God to rescue us and in doing so strengthen our faith. But here is the other side, when we do this, not only do we receive a blessing but others can see our victory and will want the same. For it is not our victory but our Father's and He will surely bless others, who by watching your victory, call on His name for their own victory as well. This will speak for us about God's love and mercy. What a wonderful feeling, when you completely surrender to Father's will and allow Him to save you. When you have been curled up in pain and TRUE despair of all your lifelong failures, and then you cry out and suddenly FEELING Father draw near to you! Father's love washing over you and finally knowing that you are alive and will be okay because no matter what may happen, you DO HAVE a loving God who is faithful to save and earnestly listening for your cries of duress and mercy. Oh to be able to live each day in that one moment in time when that knowledge of His presence hits you. WOW. I pray each day that Father renew His Spirit within me in order that I may KNOW that the Spirit is there and I may have peace. May you do the same.