The plan doesn’t matter anymore. The house doesn’t need to get picked up. You don’t even care about what your life looks like. This feeling is dominating, and nobody understands. You want them to, but it’s embarrassing to feel this way. Your emotions are mixed with worry, regret, “should-haves” and attempts to assign blame. Your body is weak and hungry, but you don’t want to cook anything. There are leftovers in the fridge, but you’re resorting to snacking on crackers … maybe later. The hunger pangs strangely feel cathartic. At least you can control them by consciously allowing them to remain. The simplest word to assign to this feeling is
… hurt.
You think / you feel …
Hurt comes in many forms. It could be losing favor with a superior at work, losing a baby, going through a romantic breakup, God not sparing a person after you’ve prayed for healing, losing a loved one, not resolving a disagreement with someone close to you, feeling betrayed by your sibling, not getting the grade you worked hard for; the list goes on. Believe it or not, God wants to meet you in your hurt. But this broken world we live in is filled with opportunities to place our trust somewhere other than God when we are faced with hurt.
And that’s understandable.
It’s not supposed to be this way.
God loves you.
Go back to the beginning of Genesis and see how happy the Creator was when he made the world, and how especially good he felt about the people he created. He made humanity in his image. Nothing else gets to look like God, which should give us hope in a restored relationship with our Maker! He made us, loves us, bought us back once and for all, put his Spirit inside us to help with the winding journey of life on this Earth, is preparing a beautiful place for us where there are no tears or sorrow, and has promised to come back and restore the Earth—banishing sin and suffering forever.
No level of hurt is too little to bring to God.
No matter your hurt, the list of thoughts and feelings above are valid questions to ask the Lord. You’ve lost a job, your spouse walked out on your relationship, you can’t find your car keys, you got diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, you got diagnosed with cancer, you have to downsize your lifestyle, your tooth hurts, your adult child won’t respond to you, your plans for the weekend got canceled. Those are all very different, and we can all recognize that in this world, they are weighted very uniquely. However, they are ALL opportunities to bring your cares to God (1 Peter 5:7). Don’t miss the opportunity!
It’s never wrong to cry out to God.
Just like your desire at the doctor’s office is to talk about your problem and all of the context that led to this pain or what is impacted by your ailment, Jesus is deeply interested in hearing from you! It’s hard to believe that someone so important has the time or wants to give you this level of concierge care. But he does —and honestly, he has infinitely more time and attention than even the best medical provider.
There’s a story behind the suffering.
We often ask the question: “Why?” Why would God allow this to happen to me? Why is he distant? Is he even there/real? God desires to be in relationship with the people he created. He has an infinite capacity to know and understand each of us deeply. Yet, we live in a world filled with opportunities to ignore him. Can you think of anything you put above God in your life? Does it have anything to do with the hurt you are feeling now? Bring this to the Lord as an offering. This act puts him in his rightful place in your life. He is the most important One. Everyone and everything else comes behind him. This is the story our hurt can tell. There is a purpose to it all.
He gets it.
This friend-yet-King ministers to us in our suffering. He became flesh and lived among us (John 1:14). He was hurt and affected by the sin of others and knows what it is like to live through the myriad of struggles we all face. He is a great sympathizer (Hebrews 4:15)! He is able to not only be the Lord of our lives and King of the universe, but he has also been a humble servant who was afflicted with everything we have and will ever face. He went so far as to submit to his own design of being murdered as a criminal, even though he never sinned. This was to show his love for us, in that while we were STILL sinning against him, he died for us (Romans 5:8). He is personally acquainted with our struggles and sins. The effects of sin in this world literally killed him. But he didn’t stay dead! There’s hope.
He is with us.
If you believe in Jesus and call him Lord, there’s a special gift you get to help in the hurting and struggling you will face. God gives you his Spirit. The Holy Spirit, or the Helper, is a part of this spiritual journey on earth, and God’s Word even says, “The Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” Romans 8:26. There are times in our lives—no matter what level of hurt we are experiencing—where we even need help talking to God. Being with Him isn’t something we know how to do. Our pattern has been interrupted. We question if he’s there. But God’s Spirit is there. And he is groaning for us in ways we can’t even understand. He is with us, ministering to us. What a gift.
You see, no matter what we think or feel, we need to be reminded who we are. We are God’s beloved children. He cares about our every thought. He hears us when we cry out to him. He will redeem our suffering. He understands and sympathizes with our hurts. And he has not left us—nor will he ever leave us.