Getting through it

This devotional from “Seeing Beautiful Again” by Lysa Terkeurst was so wonderfully written I had to share:

Part of what makes healing so hard is the deep ache left behind after the trauma.

Loss envelops us with a grief that comes in unpredictable waves. It’s hard to know if you’re getting better when a string of good days suddenly gives way to an unexpected emotional crash. It’s in those moments where I find myself whispering…

Am I going to feel like this forever? Is it always going to hurt this much?

I want healing to be as neat and predictable as a checklist. I don’t want to be inconvenienced by it, and I most certainly don’t want to be caught off guard by the emotions that can go along with it.

But of course, if you’ve ever had to heal from having your heart broken in excruciating ways, you know you can’t schedule healing. You can’t hurry it up. And you can’t control how and when it will want to be tended to.

Trust me when I say I understand all of these feelings. I know what it’s like to wish someone would please just tell you how in the world you’re supposed to make it through all 86,400 seconds of the day when you’re in so much pain.

But I’ve discovered those days where a fresh wave of tears hit us all over again don’t have to be setbacks. They can be evidence we’re moving through the hardest parts of healing. The new tears over old wounds are proof we’re processing the grief and wrestling well with the ache in our soul.

Feeling the pain is the first step toward healing the pain. And all those emotions that keep bubbling up and unexpectedly spilling out? They’re evidence you aren’t dead inside. There’s life under the surface. And while feelings shouldn’t be dictators of how we live, they are great indicators of what still needs to be worked through.

When we love deeply, we hurt deeply. This is why we have to learn how to trust the process of healing. We have to let it ebb and flow around, in, and through us. We have to grant it access to our heart.

And when we start to see healing as unfolding layers of unexpected strength and richly revealed wisdom, it doesn’t feel so unfair. It starts to feel like a secret wisdom God is whispering into the depth of our soul.

Then one day we realize the future feels stunningly appealing. Not because circumstances have changed but because we have embraced reality, released control, and found this healed version of ourselves is what we’d been looking for all along.

I don’t know what kind of pain or heartbreak you may be processing right now. But I do want to point you toward the hope found in 1 Peter 5:10: “The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.”