One Who Understands

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.