Don’t Loose Sight

“When all you see is your pain, you loose sight of me.” – Papa (God)

The Shack

Inevitable, but Necessary

I learned this really early on in life – Pain is inevitable.

At some point during our life we will experience great pain. We can’t avoid it; there is no promise of a pain free life. It is embedded into the very fabric of our human existence.

We are imperfect beings. We may have good intentions, but our imperfections magnified by our inability to sometimes gauge the consequences of our actions, leads to great pain.

In an attempt to protect ourselves from pain we often obsess over it. How to avoid it? How to get over it? Why did it happen? Why didn’t God stop it? Why, if he is a good God… does he allow pain in our lives?

Pain, as unpleasant as it is, is not entirely bad. It has a function to serve. It tells us that something is wrong and needs to be fixed.

Actually, there is rare condition called Congenital Insensitivity to Pain (CIP) that affects a small percentage of people. These people are born unable to feel pain. Their bodies simply cannot register pain. Many of the people who suffer from this condition die as children because injuries or illnesses go unnoticed. Their bodies were unable to tell them that something was wrong.

Pain is inevitable, but necessary.

Even though pain is necessary, it was not God’s original design for his children to suffer. God doesn’t cause our pain. Pain is a product of our very own brokenness and it can be traced all the way back to Adam.

My Brokenness 

Can I be honest with you? Can I share with you some of my broken areas? This is outrageously scary for me to share, but I remember as a child wondering… is there anybody out there?

Is there anybody out there who knows what I am feeling?

Is there anybody out there who questions God, but still loves Him?

Is there anybody out there who cares?

Is there anybody out there who understands me?

I am going to share with you some of my broken places and the thoughts, emotions, and actions that plague me. Perhaps, you’ve been going through this… but wondered… is there anybody out there?

I am here. I stand in solidarity with all of those who are in pain as a result of our broken system, but most importantly God is there. He always was and He always will be.

Broken Relationships

Due to my fathers alcoholism, I missed out on my childhood. I didn’t get to enjoy and experience the innocent trust that a child feels towards their father. But, my father’s brokenness was a product of his parent’s brokenness, both whom suffered from alcoholism as well. He lost his childhood too and did not know how to give me something that he never had.

The pain of not having a healthy relationship with my father impacted how I viewed God and relate to others.

Even to this day, I have a very hard time trusting God. I have to force myself to focus on Jesus and the sacrifice he made for me so that I don’t get consumed by my past. I have to constantly remind myself that God is good and he is working things out for my good.

I have to remember that my life will follow the direction of my expectations…

Broken Boundaries 

At the age of 4, I was sexually molested by a girl who was a couple of years older than me. It marked me. To this day, sex has a negative connotation for me. Something that was created to be fully enjoyed between the intimate confinements of marriage, was distorted for me at the age of 4.

At 17, I was sexually molested again by a close family friend. We met him at church. He came into our life under the facade that he would protect us from my father’s alcoholism. At some point he expressed romantic feelings toward my mom, we were all so excited. I respected this man, he seemed so genuine, but little did we know that his brokenness manifested in the form of lust and lack of self-control.

In both instances I suffered greatly. It hurt. My boundaries were violated, my consent was stripped from me, and as a result great pain ensued.

When your boundaries are violated, especially in the form of sexual abuse, you have trouble giving up control. You struggle to create healthy relationships and establish boundaries. You often cross the limits of healthy boundaries and you have trouble discerning how to form healthy relationships.

I struggle with giving up control to a God that I can’t see. I struggle to trust God.

Do you? Have there been experiences that make it difficult for you to trust God? If you do, I understand. You might feel guilty even admitting it, but our God is strong enough to handle our honesty… I recently learned that I have to be honest with Him. I don’t have to be scared to tell him what’s in my heart, he already knows, but that’s how we establish relationship by being honest with each other.

Loosing Sight

Recently, my faith took a beating.

I started to question God. Blame him… and yes judge him.

I didn’t understand why I was still dealing with depression. My childhood was rough and now my twenties had been consumed by this unrelenting pain.

I know God is good, but I began to question… is he good to me? Because logically, a good God wouldn’t allow his children too suffer, right?

I became blinded by my pain, soon I began to feel hopeless and it wasn’t long after that I started to loose faith.

In my previous post I talked about how I really messed up these last couple of months. I lost sight of God and decided to do things my way.

Outcome: I hurt a lot of people. I turned into the things that caused me pain. I became judgemental, I became selfish, I began to complain and criticize, I gave into behaviors that hurt others and hurt me.

We’ve heard the saying – hurt people, hurt people.

When we loose sight of God and decide to do things our way, we often loose sight of those around us as well. We forget about their needs and focus only on our self-preservation. We focus on ourselves and try to avoid pain at all cost… even if it means those around us suffer.

Now What?

Are we doomed? Are we forever cursed to suffer perpetual pain with no hope to overcome our brokenness?

There is hope and that hope is that He still loves us and because He loves us He promises to stay with us. He promises to still work in us and through us. He promises to love me, not in-spite of my brokenness, but to love me through my brokenness.

But, we questioned His motives, we stopped talking to Him and pushed Him away.

We rebelled and sinned against Him, we hurt people we cared about, we said things we didn’t mean.

We blamed Him for the bad things that happened and forgot to thank Him for the good things.

But… He still loves us.

If you are struggling to believe if He still cares and would like for me to pray for you or just want to talk to someone about it, feel free to reach out to me.