How do we handle pain?

            In my meditation today, I felt like I needed to journal. I have been on the brink of new understanding lately, and I could feel it. I felt like this was a necessary step in my growth, and I wanted it! I had just finished getting really bitter and nasty with my mom, and I didn’t ever want to do that again. My prayer was that this meditation would help me, so I decided to go with it.

Photo cred. http://www.exploremosaic.com

            In my journaling I found some interesting tidbits that I’d like to share with you. I’ll just quote from my journal though:

            “Truth is, it’s scary. I’m not exactly sure what’s going to happen when I accept people as they are. I certainly won’t feel justified like I have been! I’ve been in self-deception for a long time, and now I’m coming to the heart of this. I don’t know how to live any differently. I need someone to tell me that it’s going to be okay. I won’t cease to exist, and I won’t cease to feel. I’m afraid that if I accept people as they are, I’ll lose all my emotions. But truth is, I won’t have to accept their actions as they are. I can still be deeply upset about something that happens, but never shame the person! In fact, I imagine that I’ll have an even more rich emotional life! Because my emotional life will be garnished by virtue: courage, selflessness, power, love. I will have people who will more vehemently hate me, and love me. Like Christ I will gain friends who will be closer, and more intimate than any friends I’ve ever had before! I will also gain enemies who will hate me, and cause me more sadness than I’ve ever known before. This isn’t an ending. This is the beginning of a new dawn, a dawn of love.

            “…The idea of vulnerability in a friendship scares me. The idea of wholeheartedly loving someone, of letting them see me as I am, really freaks me out. I might let someone see me. I haven’t let someone see me in a loooong time! Like, a long, long time! The idea is really scary, but I know that this is what I want in my marriage: total authenticity and vulnerability.

            “But I don’t know how to live that way! What if it hurts?! Indeed. What if it hurts? Will you die? No. But hurting is worse than death! If I die things just stop, but if I hurt it carries on. I’m not going to lie to you, it’s going to hurt. But you’re actually hurting more now than you will when you live in total vulnerability and authenticity. You bury your hurt, and ignore your hurt, and hurt yourself more in order to cover up the hurt, but if you acknowledge the hurt you can forgive and then be free. ‘If someone hurts you, so much that your feelings seem to choke you, forgive, and you will be free (F. Enzio Busche).’”

           

            As I was writing this I asked, “what do you do when you get hurt? How do you handle hurt in a healthy way?” And the answer that came as I looked to the Savior of the World. He gave the perfect example in all things. As he hung on the cross, obviously hurting he did one thing that helped him deal with that emotional pain of betrayal from those you love, those with whom he was authentic, and vulnerable, and real. He forgave.

  

          “Forgiveness is one of the greatest medicines around.” –Kimberly Watts

            As I seek to live more like Christ, I will seek more to accept people as they are, not judge them or their actions (which Enzio Busche also prescribes for Christ-like living in Unleashing The Dormant Spirit), be vulnerable, authentic, and real, and forgive others when I’m hurt by their actions. If I don’t fully live up to this perfectly, I pray that you will forgive me.

            If you haven’t read it yet, go read Unleashing The Dormant Spirit by F. Enzio Busche. It’s on my blog here. If you have read it, go read it again, it’s worth a reread or two (or fifty).