There is a deep place inside of each of us that is masterful at convincing us that we have worked through the pain that life has dealt us. Somewhere deep within we really believe that our heart has healed. Yet we have done nothing to help it. We have made very little effort and the little effort we have made is met with little success because the pain of digging up the history is overwhelming and forces us to push it back down.
The real hero inside of you is the voice that refuses to let you just push it aside. It is the voice that won't let you tell yourself your over it. When we listen to that still small voice telling us to feel, I believe that is when we have arrived at the most powerful place ever, the place where true change happens.
We have to allow ourselves to feel. Painful memories are rooted deep within us. If we do not take care of the pain at its deepest root it will eventually rise up and grow within us once again. It is usually here that most people deceive themselves. They cut the tree down but never deal with the roots. It is in this place when we choose to deal with our pain and feel, that our true character is revealed and we are proven. God gave me a saying that I live by now because of my own personal walk through pain, it is this, "A Persons character is tested in the secret place, and proven in the light." I love this because it speaks multitudes of where your heart may be in seasons when you are responding instinctualy to the pain in your life, and the character you have developed in the secret place will be reflected in your response to your pain.
Did you get angry and bitter. Did you tell yourself your fine and nothing can touch you because your powerful and strong. It is all a lie. God hungers for you to be tender and vulnerable in seasons where you are suffering great pain. He wants to use those times in your life to develop a level of character within you that can only be found in that season alone. Often times people rob themselves of something amazing that God is trying to do within their heart because they refuse to embrace their pain and work through it. Instead, they push it aside and tell themselves or rather convince themselves they are fine.
The real test of whether you have dealt with the pain is when you are confronted by the very thing that hurt you. Can you embrace it? Are you able to look it in the face and say, " You do not determine how much I love you! and I choose to love" Can you truly forgive. What I mean by this is, can you begin to work to develop a place in your life once again for the thing that caused you pain. Now I am not saying this is a universal standard. Sometimes you must remove the thing that is causing you pain all together because it's not healthy at all for you. But even then it doesn't give you the right to ignore Gods promises. He promises us a whole and healthy heart if we will forgive and totally surrender everything to him.
My view on pain has changed so much in these last 6 months. Somewhere along the way I was hurt so deeply that pain no longer scared me. I wasn't afraid of being hurt anymore. It was the most amazingly free feeling in the world. I didn't arrive there on my own. I had spent several months in counseling. One day my counselor said, "It is only when you can embrace your pain and work through it that you can truly be free, pain only controls us through fear. You have never been in a better place in your life Adam then you are right now. You are very dangerous because you don't have to be afraid of pain anymore." Something happened in that moment. I realized that I was bigger then my circumstance and I started to live in the situation from a different place.
I began to pray and prophesy over the thing that had hurt me. I understood that I would be hurt along the way but I didn't care any longer because I knew there was something so much bigger in store. I was not afraid to confront my circumstances with love...it was the first time in my entire life that I felt like I was in control of my life. I remember shortly after that having a conversation with a dear friend of mine and telling him, "This situation cannot determine how much I love these people" It was as if someone else was speaking through me. I had found the place that God had so desperately been trying to get me to. It was that place where I knew that he was real and he was God and he would always be more then enough for me to trust and believe in with my pain. Not just with my joy but with my PAIN.
He is anxiously waiting to encounter you right where your at. Don't be afraid to feel what you need to feel for God to get in. He is the only one who can truly bring you total freedom. It is scary and will be painful. You will be forced to deal with things that you have never wanted to because they are so painful to you. I remember writing one day in my journal during the peak of my pain and working through it, "The hardest thing about becoming a man that God can call his friend, is realizing how long I was one that he couldn't" It was the most painful revelation in my life. But from that revelation has come the most amazing changes. For one moment in time God allowed me to see me for who I really was....You cannot meet God face to Face and leave unchanged. He will leave his mark on you forever. You just have to let him show you you....and many times that's hardest reality to swallow because being honest means feeling things we have worked hard to avoid. Just let go let God in and let your heart feel. That is the formula. It really is that simple .
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