Devotions For Real Life

I’ve discovered an area of my life that I need to dig into. It’s interesting how God works in us. He doesn’t just let issues lay in you forever unresolved, he allows things to bring them to the surface because they need to be dealt with. Today, I’m having to dig up something I’ve been ignoring for a while. So, I’m just going to dive in and see what God wants to do here because resolution sounds really good.

Presently, I’m doing a Bible study with my women’s group authored by a wonderful Christian woman. It’s a good study but I find myself at odds with the author. Not in the way that you would think, I don’t disagree with her teaching. It was her that I had a problem with. 

She is a wife and a mother, who is married to a pastor and even the examples she gives seemed to be easy. Now this is a touchy area for me because I was once a wife, a chaplain’s wife, and I’m also a mother. So, when I see this author, I see myself before, as I could have been. I’m AD now After Divorce, she is before and with a perfect life from outside appearances or at least a much easier one. It’s hard for me to listen to her words and trust in her authority when I feel like she doesn’t understand me because she has not struggled or lost like I have. I know this sounds petty, but these are the thoughts I have had.  I didn’t understand why I was thinking and feeling these things, but it’s kind of like she’s too perfect and it bothered me. Not something I like admitting but it’s true and it’s something I needed to sort out because I recognize it’s wrong.

Here’s the truth, I don’t know this woman’s situation and thinking she is perfect is an assumption I’m making. I honestly don’t know what struggles she goes through or if everything is as wonderful looking on the inside as it appears on the outside. The way she writes everything seems to be on the up and up. Wouldn’t we all want to have a happy loving husband with happy loving children and an ideal life. But how many of us really do? See that’s where I’m stuck, how do I trust in the words that someone’s writing or sharing when they can’t understand me. And why does it hurt so bad to see this person with a “perfect life.”  This was what I needed to dig into.  This anger and hurt over something I’m perceiving or assuming. 

This wasn’t the first time I had run into this same kind of thinking and I’ve actually shared with the person I’m speaking about, so I don’t mind writing it here. My worship leader at church is a young, passionate about Jesus, talented, early 20s young lady. When I met her, I saw in her so much of what I was way back before. Before I was a wife or a mother. Before I had been divorced and had my heart stomped on several times. Before my scars were so obvious and my rose-colored glasses shattered and irreparable. But that’s what I saw through my eyes, probably not reality, I know she’s had her own struggles. Yet when I looked at her, I remembered who I had been. So, when I looked at her it hurt. That’s hard to admit. That it hurts because I remember being that young idealistic excited for life woman. Passionate about worshipping Jesus. And I know what happened to that girl I used to be. I’m not going to lie, there’s times I wish so badly I could be that person again, not jaded or wounded by life. The reality is I can never go back, and I think that’s why it hurts.

I also think that’s why reading this Bible study is hard for me because the vision that this woman paints of her life and her family is the vision I lost. There’s a part of me, a small part, that wants to feel sorry for myself sometimes over these loses. Like this wasn’t fair. It wasn’t my fault that I lost my marriage, I tried so hard to save it. There were things that happened to me that were my fault but that one wasn’t. So maybe every time I look at a happy family or someone who appears to be fresh and new and vibrant there’s going to be an ache because I’ve lost that.  That dream, that relationship, that innocence and idealism. This has taken me a while to admit to myself. I couldn’t figure out before why it bothered me, but I know now why it hurts and bothers me. I can be honest with my reasons now. 

Maybe you’ve been there. Maybe it’s somebody different who you’re looking at that causes the ache. Perhaps you’re looking at a successful coworker and you feel that ache because you were denied a promotion or success through circumstances you couldn’t control. Maybe you lost a spouse through disease or accidental death and every time you look at couples you have an ache because it doesn’t seem right that you had to lose your mate. Maybe you’re that person who is dealing with baroness, unable to maintain a pregnancy or deliver a healthy baby your heart so desperately desires. Every baby shower, every birth announcement, every Mother’s Day is like a stab to your heart. Maybe you have been single and hoped for that helpmate, dreamed of a partner to walk through life with but find yourself alone still. Weddings and couples nights and a having a family is a dream unrealized or unfulfilled. There are so many maybe possibilities, lost dreams, or unrealized moments. It’s not that we begrudge any of those people for the joy that they have that we wish for or long for, it’s just that seeing their joy reminds us of our loss or our lack thereof. Seeing what they have reminds us that we don’t have it. That’s the real reason why it hurts when I see that lady’s wonderful family and even when I look at that young passionate worship leader. It’s not about jealousy, it’s not about coveting, it’s really grieving what has been lost.

Now that I can finally admit to myself the real reason behind that ache I feel, what do I do with this realization? Where to from here? Perhaps admitting it is really the start. Recognizing that it’s not about coveting, it’s not about being bitter, it’s not about wishing that other person didn’t have that thing that I see that I wish I still had, it’s simply about recognizing that there’s a part of me that still hurts because of the things that I’ve lost. Whether it’s people, relationships, innocence, or dreams, we all have lost things, many are things that we wish we could get back.  It hurts so badly like an open wound, even years later.  That’s where you are taken in the moments when you see that dream, that thing, that love that was lost to you in others.

The truth is it’s not an open wound years later, it’s just a scar.  An old injury that makes your bones ache on a cold day or before it rains.  So, you never get to forget that there was an injury there. For just a moment, when you see what was or could have been in someone else, it takes your breath away, like you were there again, receiving the bad news or living your worst nightmare. Seeing what was lost or what you lack can trigger that. First, we need to recognize that this feeling is a part of grief, it means we are human.

People say that time heals all wounds and it’s true that time can make things easier to bear, but time never takes away all grief. You can’t change back to what you were before, take back what was lost, or get what you never had. Maybe we can get other versions of it but it’s not the same.

I do think it’s important to recognize the root cause of that pain, it’s also important not to let ourselves focus only on what we have lost or live in that pain. The pain of the what ifs, what could have beens, or what was. We don’t want to get trapped there. It’s not healthy to stay trapped there, we have to find a way forward.  

We also have to be careful to not allow bitterness to seep in. We need to understand that it’s not that person who has what we lost that is hurting us.  They are not living to cause us pain, they are just living and dealing with their own set of disappointments and challenges.  We need to remember that we have been given different blessings, maybe not the ones we want but we are blessed.  The person is not maliciously enjoying what they have with the intent to hurt us, that’s what we need to keep in mind.  They are not the enemy.  So, we need to be careful not to be angry or bitter at the person.   Even if those people did not have the blessing that they had, we would still have the loss that we do. And who’s to say that their lives really are as full or great as we perceive it from the outside in those moments of our grief.

Whether you feel your losses were completely unfair, unearned, undeserved or not, that loss and that grief is a lifelong process to recover from. Do you ever think Jesus’s mother didn’t miss her son? Have you ever contemplated what it was like for her to have to watch him die? Do you think that she perhaps looked at other families with all the children living and there was that little ache because she knew that someone was missing from her family? We know that many in the bible grieved over losses of every kind.  This is not new, but the mistake we make is that we don’t realize what the root issue is of the ache when we see what we’ve lost in others or in their lives.  Instead, we put these feelings of frustration and bitterness towards the people who we perceive to have what we lack or lost. And this was what I was doing with my frustration with that author. I needed to check myself. The problem of my attitude and outlook was not on her, the problem was inside of myself. I had not admitted to myself that the loss of my marriage, the loss of my innocence, and the loss of my idealistic dreams hurt.

Where from here? I need to do with this just like I do with everything else that I come across inside my heart that needs healing and correction. I’m going to take it to my father. I’m going to let him know where I hurt, I’m going to cry on his shoulder as much or as often as I need to. I’m going to recognize that my battle is not against flesh and blood but against the enemy of my soul who would have me prefer to tear others down instead of addressing the true issue which is my pain. I’m going to feel what I need to feel in the moment, allow God to heal and work at it, and move forward. I may have lost but I am not a loser. There are many more victories in my future ahead. I must look to a new day. I must look to the blessings that God has given me. Or I’ll miss those because of looking at the things that I’ve lost. 

This is not what I thought I would be writing when I started today, in much the same way my life has not played out the way I expected it to when I was a girl and I dreamed, but I can look at it for what it is and see that though it might not be what I expected, though it might be riddled with loss and challenges, there’s so much more good and blessings that God has given me. I will choose to focus there. I will choose to wish the same for all of you.

May God be a soothing balm on your soul for those parts of you that ache because you’ve lost or maybe never have had, and may he bring joy in the morning and new opportunity. To get there remember you have to be honest with yourself, you need to recognize that we’re not fighting against each other we’re fighting with each other against a common enemy who would want us to be discouraged, who would want to confuse us as to who our enemy really is, and who wants to keep us from the victory that he knows is ours. We need to build each other up and encourage each other, because each of us has our own loss, grief, pain, and disappointment to deal with.