No Pain No Gain

Lately there's a man who has been pretty persistent in asking me out. In fact, just about every time I talk with him there's a none to subtle attempt to see if the door's just a little bit open for him. What I find very interesting about this is that he and his wife just separated in November.
He told me that he'd "finally" gotten through his ordeal. He's ready to get on with his life. Finally? It's only been three months!

I haven't told him yet (but I will when the opportunity presents) that he's not through his ordeal yet. Not by a long shot. This guy was married 20+ years. You don't get over a relationship of that length in 3 months - heck maybe not in 3 years. He doesn't need a date. He needs friends. He needs support. He needs to feel his hurt until he's healed.

Since my divorce I've paid attention in a way I didn't before to the different methods of dealing with emotional or psychic pain. I remember being newly separated. I wanted to be ready to move on - ready to love and be loved again. I thought that I'd grieved the end of my marriage during the years it was dying. Wrong! I've watched others dull the pain of losing a relationship by quickly going into another one, only to find themselves reliving history.

Any situation that causes us to experience emotional, spiritual, or psychic pain and stress takes us to a special place. Maybe it's not divorce, it's the death of someone dear and significant, or a job loss, or an illness. When faced with a time like this, it's tempting to try to avoid processing how we feel about it.

Some times we're forced to continue to perform daily tasks that make it very difficult to work through what's happened to us. I know a guy whose wife left him with several young children to take care of. At the time, he only had the energy to put one foot in front of the other. His situation is very different now. He's remarried and his children are older. Guess what? Just because his circumstances have changed doesn't mean that he still doesn't have some old issues to work through.

It's not really any different from hurting your body. You can cut yourself, break a bone, blow your ACL or any number of other things. The time it takes to heal depends on the type and severity of the injury. What it takes to heal is also determined by the kind of injury too. If you cut yourself maybe you just need a bandaid and some ointment for a couple of days. If you break a bone it's a bit more complicated. If you blow your ACL, you're in for a couple of years of healing and rehab.

Do you remember earlier this year when Shawne Merriman (linebacker for the San Diego Chargers) struggled about whether or not to play this season with two torn ligaments in his knee? He didn't really want to face the fact that he needed surgery - and consequently to sit out the season- in order to get well. He flirted with possibly playing injured and prematurely ending his career by making his injury worse. Why?

I think we Americans don't like to be on the injured reserve list. We'd rather move forward and forget about pain - physical or psychic. Facing pain means facing our vulnerability. Facing pain sometimes means facing our own sinfulness.

I empathize with the guy who's been asking me out. I know how he feels. I've been there myself. If he's like me, he may be afraid that there's no light at the end of the tunnel he's walking through... But there is.

If you're experiencing something difficult, don't numb down. Don't avoid facing things - or facing yourself. Don't be afraid of the injured reserve. The place you fear is, in reality, a place of much blessing and growth. It's a doorway into a wider place. Enter into the experience fully and receive undreamed of blessings from the hand of God.