I shared in my last post about the great loss I have been
dealing with the past few months. The
struggle to move forward and live. One
of the greatest battles I have faced in the death of my father has been the
isolation the pain of loss has caused me to feel.
“Nobody gets it.”
“They haven’t been in my shoes.”
“They haven’t been here.
They don’t know how it feels.”
When we are going through something very difficult it is
easy to think no one else understands or can identify with our pain. As I have been living through my own pain
recently, God has opened my eyes to see how naively unaware I have been to the
depth of pain others around me have gone through. Until now I did not recognize my own
blindness. This life is one filled with
pain. Christ never promised us a life of
ease and comfort. I have witnessed
family members selflessly and tirelessly care for loved ones who are living
through debilitating disease, other family members themselves daily battling
chronic pain, and friends who month after month face the heart wrenching
struggle of infertility. We all
individually have lives filled with pain that we are living through in some
form or another.
For myself I have so desperately desired for others to be
willing to enter into my pain with me and hold my hand on this road. It is so easy to become embittered and angry
and point the finger at where others fail.
But I have realized that I have failed.
I have failed to reach out to others experiencing their walk
of pain.
I have failed to move outside of my comfort zone to offer
comfort to others.
I am learning every day to stop expecting people to “get it”. To stop wanting people to fully understand
what I am feeling. I have realized that
it is impossible for me to fully grasp the full realm of pain that those around
me are facing, because I have not walked in their shoes. I don’t have to fully understand them and
they don’t have to fully understand me in order for us to reach our hands of
love out to each to other and walk these roads of life side by side. I just have to be willing to enter in, to be
ok feeling awkward and unsure of what to say.
It is enough to be a warm hand to hold or shoulder to lean on. We are called to bear these burdens of life
together.
I have also learned through this time of grieving that there
is One who understands. In the Garden of
Gethsemane we see that Jesus has faced great sorrow as well. He understands when we feel like sorrow is
pressing the life out of us. He understands
the words I cannot utter because of the lump in my throat. He understands the unexpected tears that
flow. He understands that sick feeling
in my stomach and the inability to sleep at night.
He understands.
In her book One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp speaks
words of life to me.
“Only the Word is the answer to rightly reading the world, because The Word has nail-scarred hands that cup our face close, wipe away the tears running down, has eyes to look deep into our brimming ache, and whisper, ‘I know. I know.'”
Dear one, I just want to remind all of us that even when we
feel like no one gets what we are going through. That no one could possibly understand our
pain. There is One who understands and
walks with us. He knows. He gets it.
