For Lent Only 

         You Know My Pain 

Today, 13 young children were murdered in Brazil by a very scary person.

Finding meaning right within our trauma is pretty hard to do. When a man loses his job, he is not just experiencing the suffering of not being able to bring food to the table...He suffers at a deeper level...the level of not being man enough to provide...a natural built in instinct, essential to his identity.   

When our child comes home pregnant, or we find out that our son is on drugs or that perhaps he or she has left the church or is heading for a divorce, we ache for our child.  But, besides this...we suffer the deep pain of feeling that we failed as parents and we have failed our children. When someone is physically abused by someone else, not only do they suffer the trauma of the event, but they suffer the lies that they believed about themselves at the time of the abuse...possibly that they were no longer good enough or that they were just bad, or it was their fault, or they will never be  'clean' again.  

It is at those deeper levels that the pain tears us apart.  The grief...it is hard enough to suffer loss.  But the deeper pain is what so often goes unheeded.  

God wants us to talk to him about this deeper pain.  

But before we can do that, we need to be brave enough to take a "Second Look" at what we believed about ourselves when our particular traumatic situations happened. Often, what we believed about ourselves at the time was a lie.  That is why we still have the pain.   

The emotional pain that we still carry can become a gift though.  It can lead us back to something so much deeper.  God yearns for us to talk to Him about our deepest fears and sorrows and beliefs about ourselves. He wants to speak truth to our ravished hearts and give us His perspective.    

We have been practicing listening to God more this Lent, going to the quiet corner in the living room on a moment's notice, drawing near to Him in so many areas of our lives.

Now it's time to listen to His voice in areas that we don't even want to "think about".   He wants to meet you even there.  He wants you free of emotional pain even in the most traumatic memory. When God speaks the truth to us, when we listen and hear His perspective, we are free indeed!  Free to grieve, but free also to move on with life and to begin finding meaning again and joy.   

The reality of life doesn't change, history doesn't erase.  But God visiting us in our hardest reality will bring a peace that passes all understanding as the Truth settles over our hearts.

It is like a miracle.  The healing He has for us is beyond our greatest hopes and imaginings.   Take a look at the Pine Tree covered with fluffy snow  

again.