Tag Archives: Pain

Strength in Joy

by

Lately I’ve been so aware of the heartache of life. Situations that people find themselves in where there actually is a physical response to emotional pain. A literal heart ache. In talking, thinking and praying through these situations I keep coming back to the words ‘The Joy of the Lord is my strength’. The phrase comes from Nehemiah 8:10 in which we are instructed ‘Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength’.

I think it’s one of those wonderful things we say to people who are grieving but I never want to be someone who just says things for the sake of saying things and so it warranted further thought.

I’ve never been more aware of the acute difference between Joy and Happiness. Happy is an emotion, joy is state of mind. Happy is temporary, Joy is eternal. There’s something so powerful about true joy and I think that’s why we tell people ‘the joy of the Lord is your strength’. It’s not some iffy wiffy statement that proclaims, if you are happy and you just try a little bit harder to find some ‘joy’ in this trial, there you will find your strength. Fooey! Anyone who tells someone that, hasn’t been through heart ache or is having you on.

Have you ever met someone with true joy? So often it seems like nothing gets them down, that somehow they turn every hardship into opportunity. These are people who have grasped pure joy. People with joy aren’t easily beaten, they aren’t easily bruised and when they are, they have the strength to rise and try again.

If true joy seems a little unattainable, or a little too tough at times the best news that I have is that it’s the joy OF the Lord that is your strength. Supernatural and complete joy only comes from God. Let his joy and delight be your joy and delight. It won’t fix your problems, but you will find strength in pain.

1 Chronicles 16:27
Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and joy are in his dwelling place.

Psalm 28:7
The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him.

20120314-104506.jpg

Hope and Breaking

by

Have you ever experienced crushing defeat?

There’s a definite difference between regular old defeat, which still isn’t fun, and soul crushing defeat. Defeat occurs on a regular basis. You fail a test, you mess up a proposal at work, you made a fool of yourself, you sung a wrong note. Soul crushing defeat is worse. It might be those very same circumstances, but your heart was involved.

You desperately needed a pass and you’d put everything into that assignment. Soul Crushing Defeat. You messed upon a proposal at work that you’d spent hours and hours on and it means you won’t get that promotion. Soul Crushing Defeat. You made a fool of yourself and went out on a limb with that special someone. Soul Crushing Defeat. You sung a wrong note in front of hundreds of people who laughed. Soul Crushing Defeat.

This is the worst kind of pain. When you’re brought so close to something that means so much to you – only to have it flop and turn into icky mess. You were so sure that God had whispered to you that this was finally your moment – you walked right up to the doorway and you were about to step into your dream and the door got slammed in your face. You were so close to the dream that the door kind of pinches you on the nose and throws you backwards. You’re left a little bit (or a lot) broken and crumpled on the floor and getting up seems like the hardest thing, let alone trying again.

There’s a very fine and awkward line between Hope and a Broken Heart. Hope means opening yourself up to the possibility of defeat, to the very real possibility of a broken heart.

However, the line between Fear and Eternal Disappointment is also fine. In fact it’s barely a line at all. I want to shudder when I hear quotes like ‘You miss 100% of the shots you never take’, but it’s actually true. You will never get what you want if you are always afraid. If you never took a chance.

I can promise you, from very real and personal experience, that taking risks can mean failure. It can mean defeat, even soul crushing defeat. But everything important in life is worth a risk. It’s worth trying. It’s worth a little defeat. It’s worth putting yourself out there. Don’t be afraid of hope. Don’t be afraid of a broken heart. Don’t be afraid.

The Hunt for True Love

by

Love is really the thing isn’t it? I mean it was the thing back in biblical times, it was the thing back in the 18th century and it’s still the thing now. It’s what consumes so much of our money, time and emotional resources. We search for it. Fight for it. Live for it. Die for it. True Love. You’re kind of kidding yourself if you aren’t interested in it.

As a single Christian female, the hunt for true love is unique. In fact it’s basically the opposite to how those outside the Christian worldview search for love. We aren’t in a position where we can try, try and try again. Trial and error gives us a bad reputation.

It’s a really fine line between knowing what you want and writing down those all important characteristics and then allowing yourself to be flexible, open and acknowledging that sometimes God knows what we need better than we do.

Throw into the mix the whole confusing concept of God’s timing, your life’s calling and the slowly diminishing number of Christian males on the market, and girls begin to panic. We start lowering our standards, we stop letting guys make the first move due to fear of being alone and we push push push.

But I mean really? What’s a girl to do?

Evidently, girls don’t know what to do. They don’t know when to be bold and when to hold back. They don’t know when something’s right and when something’s wrong. They fall for the worst kinds of men and then wonder why they are unhappy and alone again. In fact, most of the time they just wonder why they are alone. What’s wrong with me? Am I not pretty enough? Is my heart too broken? Do I cry too much? Am I too outspoken? Casey Chambers anyone?

If you kept reading this post thinking that I’d have all the answers, then I’ll be honest like I always am and tell you right now that I don’t. I think people would assume I have it figured out.. so many of my friends are all married and settled and I seem pretty content so I should know right? Sorry ladies. I’m also in the dark.. BUT.. despite the fact that my last relationship was so long ago that I actually forget how old I was.. I know quite a lot about the Hunt for True Love.

I remember when I met my true love. I remember falling in love. I remember specific moments and I remember specific seasons. I remember bad times but mostly I remember good times. My true love makes me laugh, cry and fall on the floor so grateful for how much He loves me.

Oh I know it’s cliché.. Fall I love with Jesus and all your problems will be sorted? Really Steff? That’s your answer. Thanks for the help.

I don’t want to offend anyone, but if that answer wasn’t a good enough answer for you – then I’d hazard a guess that your quest for true love is unfulfilled.

I’m so rarely lonely. I’m so rarely confused or frustrated or concerned about timeframes. And that’s not because I’m overly confident, or I have a healthy relationship with my Dad or just because I’m busy and my life is naturally fulfilling. Trust me, I could choose to be unhappy and scared and alone. But I’m just not. I made a choice that God was enough. It doesn’t always feel like that, but I always know that He is.

Actually, maybe I do have it figured out. Isn’t that the goal? To really be in love with Jesus and to never live life afraid of being alone. I think God actually cries when His daughters feel alone. You are NEVER alone and you are NEVER far from His thoughts.

Pure truth.

Dreary dreams.

by

Realistically, there are a lot of reasons why today, while reading this blog, that you could be filled with sorrow.

Natural Disasters. Financial Difficulty. Death. Loss of a relationship. Unemployment. Family Breakdown. Physical Sickness. Emotional Sickness.

You could even be really petty and whinge about something like the weather. Or that you haven’t bought a new pair of shoes in months.

Who holds your joy?

If joy is found in wordly things, then the world holds your joy. If your joy is found in all the moments God gives you, then Christ holds your joy.

When you find yourself in moments of despair or sorrow – where do you turn? Do you turn to the world or to Jesus?

Who you turn to shows so much of who is in control of your life. Is the world? You’ll be dissapointed. Are you in control? You’ll be dissapointed. Is Jesus? He will never leave you or forsake you. His mercies are neverending and new every morning. Pain in the night – but joy in and through the mourning.

So, who holds your joy?

You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever. Psalm 16:11 NLT.

Five is a Four Letter Word

by

While it’s quite obvious I pay more attention to my other blogs than to this one, tumblr is a great post inspiration tool. I follow mostly fashion blogs, a couple of blogs that post about tv shows I like, and anyone who regularly posts nice images (and of course people I actually know). But in the midst of the great posts, you can get some kind of awful ones. The ones where the blogger decided to actually post their real thoughts (people think ugly things) or the EMO type posts. I saw one that got me to thinking about a five letter word that I think is really difficult to deal with.

I think LOVE is a hard word for a lot of people to say. But for me it’s probably not so much, love, as is it TRUST.

If I really think back to the root of any kind of pain I experienced, it wasn’t from a lack of love, or unreturned love or love necessarily gone wrong. Almost all pain, can be traced back to broken trust.

Divorce. It’s broken trust.

Abuse. It’s broken trust.

Gossip. Broken trust.

Failed economy. Trust again.

Relational breakdown. Broken trust.

No matter what the hurt or pain, at no point in my life, do I believe I forgot how to love, or that I refused to let love into my life or that I became afraid of love. If anything, because of the pain, I give away love to the wrong kinds of thing. Love isn’t the issue. Trust is. I don’t trust people. I’m afraid of people breaking my trust. I withold the most important parts of myself until I feel like I can really trust people.

If you don’t trust, then you don’t hope. You don’t put your hope in things because of the fear of having your hopes dashed. A life without hope isn’t really a life at all.

Life shouldn’t be lived like a blind fool where you trust everything. I wouldn’t let just anyone borrow $2,000 off me and TRUST that they would return it. But a live lived hidden because of pain, an inability to trust, is a sad thing indeed.

People will let you down. Life let’s us down. I can’t think of anyone who hasn’t been at least slightly bruised by life and I know far too many people who’s life wounds are deep and painful and raw. But I’m slowly learning to put ALL my hope and ALL my trust in someone who never lets me down. I’m not as scared of trusting others because my trust is ultimately in my heavely father.

The key to heart issues is often trust. We think we need sort out our ‘love’ issues, when really we need to ask God to heal us and help us with our issues with trust.

Pain

by

I want to get better at dealing with pain.

It seems like a funny way to think about pain. I want to do better with pain. It implies that there’s a different way to handle obstacles, challenges.. and well, pain.

My life has had many painful moments, like so many people that I know. Nobody’s life is immune from pain. No amount of wishing or consistent prayer eliminates pain from our life. But despite having many painful moments.. I think I’ve gotten consistently better at hiding from pain. Shoving it away.. like someone living in pain was a sign of weekness. I’ve always been kind of ‘tough’ and I think that can be a good, but mostly terribly bad thing. It means somehow – you think you might have the strength to deal with pain on your own. You’ve ‘managed’ before and so you’ll ‘manage’ again.

If you aren’t giving God 100% of your pain – you probably aren’t dealing with any of it at all. At least not successfully. I’ve decided to start working through some unresolved pain. It’s buried so deep that it will most likely take a while to resurface. But I think it’s important.

I say all of this publicly on my blog – because mostly, I say it for you. YOU that someone who is reading this. Maybe you’ve got some unresolved pain. Maybe you’re actually just knee deep in an awful situation right now. Maybe trouble seems to follow you around and you feel like you’re always trying to catch your breath. Please.. please.. please work this through. If you can do it with a notebook and your bible.. please do. If you need someone to walk it through with you.. then please ask someone.. ask me! If you actually need professional help – swallow your pride and just get help.

It’s OK to experience pain – you’re not less of a person because you feel pain. But we should work through it. There’s a world out there who needs us to be a little less broken.

“I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

Negativity

by

I think sometimes I think too much.

Lately I’ve been thinking about how it shouldn’t be that hard to find beautiful things in the world.. things to make you smile. It feels like in the world we live in there are just too many awful things happening and we forget to even look anymore. I think sometimes there’s beauty right in front of our eyes and we miss it. I spend way too much time staring at a computer screen at work, watching the news, checking my bank balance at an atm to realise the beauty in life. I think on this blog I talk a lot about beauty, I post pictures about beautiful things, beautiful people. But that’s mostly for my benefit, so that I don’t stop looking for the pretty things in life. I know that life is messy, it’s full of bad things and bad people and awful tradegies, and that a lot of the time there can be beauty in pain. I wish that wasn’t so though, I wish that there was enough beauty in the world that I didn’t have to search for it.

Here’s some things I’ve been finding beautiful lately.

Knowing that there’s only 35 days til holidays.

That in a single moment. Everything can change. That can be bad at times, but it can also be so good.

I love that photo. I love that it’s all pickles. But there’s a heart in the middle of the prickle. That’s beautiful.

I love songs. I love that there’s this episode of One Tree Hill I’ll watch over and over again, simply because one of the songs in it is so moving.