Life hurts. ... some part of it [emotional pain] can easily be overlooked, discounted, and pushed aside into a dark corner of our souls. Much of my own spiritual and emotional growth has come as a result of wrestling with this often elusive emotional pain, which twenty years of commitment to Christ is only now eroding. I call it “silent pain.” By silent pain I don’t mean the crisis grief that follows the tragedies of our lives…I mean the lingering pain, the submerged sadness, the deep ache that we neither feel hourly nor forget for more than a day or two. The deep longings of our hearts that remain unfulfilled and look more out of reach every day. I mean the disappointments in our relationships … that convince us we will never relate as deeply as we desire to with anyone on earth. Or that gray, uncertain feeling about who we are that we can’t quite put a finger on. Those “necessary losses” that we’ve never been able to face, and those hurts that have never fully healed. In our minds we’ve forgiven, perhaps even mentally forgotten, but not in our hearts. So we hush the pain, just like we jostle our restless infants during church to keep them from disturbing others. This is silent pain. For many of us, the crises of life are easier to endure than the slow-burning, quiet pains. During crisis, others rush to support us when the flame of disaster is still high. But later, or deeper, or more silent and nagging, are the pains we can’t easily explain or justify. The troubles that nobody but Jesus knows, or feels, or wants to hear. And we often wonder whether He does. ~ Kathy Olsen, Silent Pain (Finding God’s Comfort for Your Hidden Heartaches)
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 14:56:31 +0000
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