For When It Hurts

We can KNOW all the right information, but when we hurt? We are not always thinking or focusing on the information we know. Our feelings/emotions can get in the way. We hurt and that is the only thing right then that we are sure of.

As the world seems to continue growing darker and fear continues to try to invade our hearts, minds and spirits, we need a little/lot of peace on Earth, joy, and HOPE.

Hope as defined by dictionary.com:

to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence

to believe, desire, or trust:

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6 (NIV)

It is easy to feel hopeless or less hopeful than we normally would when life seems to block our view of the Jesus of Christmas (birth) and Easter (death and resurrection). Sometimes we focus on one based on the time of the year. In order to see the BIG picture though, we need to remember both. 

Maybe this year has been less ideal than most. Our family dealt with death more close up than we had in a long time when my father-in-law passed away in August. One life ripples into so many others. Sometimes in ways we are not even aware of until much later. He was a husband, father, grandpa, brother, uncle, friend.....

I am finding comfort in remembering that God sent Jesus into this corrupted world to bring hope not just for then, but for now too. Jesus came as a baby. Innocent. He grew up. Made friends. Lost friends. When he lost one of his close friends to death:

Jesus wept. John 11:35

We don't cry alone. God did not intend the world to be this way. A world with pain and suffering. My heart hurts when I see my children hurt. How God must feel the pain of His children and want to step in with comfort. We, like our own children sometimes push us away, sometimes push Him away. To do it on our own. Too proud to acknowledge dependence on somebody else. 

God sent Jesus to this world because the alternative is that we would live our time on this fallen sphere and then we die. God sent us Jesus so that we can live with the assurance that THIS? This is not all there is. He sent Jesus to experience what we experience. For when it hurts.

John 3:16-17: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

1 Peter 1:3 (NIV)
Praise to God for a Living Hope
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

If you are hurting right now more than normal? The following is my prayer for you. Make it your prayer too. 

Ephesians1:17-19 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. 

Amen and Amen!

Hurting Hearts

Oh, I so just want to turn off the TV, radio and internet and hide for awhile. The last few days have seemed overwhelming with bad weather, rising gas prices and depression rears it's ugly head. It seems like it would be easier to just go back to bed....and stay there for awhile. And the thing is? In the whole scheme of life, my overwhelmed feeling(s) and problems for the most part are fixable. My house hasn't blown away, I haven't lost someone close to me, I have a bed to crawl back into.

Honestly, that is why I have stopped watching scary movies. Real life is scary enough! But Hollywood keeps cranking them out so someone must be watching them. Video games keep looking more and more realistic. The blood splatters in the war ones? Too lifelike for my liking....even if it is "zombies". I purposely have to limit my exposure to bad news or I get sucked in and down. With most of the disasters, I have not watched more than a few minutes. I cannot watch someone else be sad without feeling their pain too deeply. I cry just from seeing someone else cry.

I am glad that there are people who can keep it in perspective. I admire emergency responders, nurses, drs, news reporters, etc. Not that they don't show or have feelings. I admire that they can do a job where they deal with this stuff everyday. I pray that they have people surrounding them that can help them decompress at the end of the day.

In a world of ever expanding social networks, I fear that we are losing our ability to see others hurting hearts. Or make ourselves too busy to deal with our own. We Facebook instead of getting together face to face. Let's be honest, a ((((you)))) cyberhug cannot beat the real thing of feeling another person's arms around you. In the effort to get a news story, reporters urge people to share their grief. They tread a fine line between actually helping and just exploiting someone's pain. And we watch it. And we shake our heads in sorrow. And maybe we say a prayer or two or three.

I think one of the many things I find amazing about God is that He doesn't compare our hurts. He doesn't tell us to suck it up because things that are bothering us or hurting our hearts are less than what someone else is going through. He offers to carry those burdens. ALL of them. Big or small. Then the issue becomes us. Are we willing to let them go....and not take them back? God sees the pain - even the pain we hide from others and sometimes ourselves. He wants to heal our hurts so we can see and help others with theirs.

Psalm 62:7-8 (NIV) My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.

Psalm 73:25-26 (NIV) Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. 

A Call to Persevere in Faith 

Hebrews 10:19-25 (NIV) Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.