Our Right to Feel Pain
Today’s guest blogger allowed me to share something she wrote but wishes to remain anonymous.
God has never denied us the right to feel pain when we hurt. He does not demand that we push our feelings under the carpet and not feel them. Even Jesus cried out in His extreme pain and agonized over what he was going through. Jesus suffered emotional (soul) pain even as the Son of God.
It is not un-spiritual to feel pain or acknowledge that it exists in our world. How could God collect our tears in a bottle if we are not to shed any tears ? We do not need to repress our emotions and pretend that they do not exist. That is the cause of many illnesses—to deny our pain, our stress and our emotions and push them deeper—denying their existence.
During His life on earth Jesus healed those who came to Him but remember they first had to admit their need for healing. We will not receive healing for something we will not admit or ask for help with. We can live in denial of our problems but that does not make them go away. That is self deception.
God did not want only the outside of the cup cleansed and looking pretty.He doesn’t just want our “Sunday clothes” on. He wants something deeper. He wants the inside cleansed and purified. This will only happen as we open up to Him and allow Him entrance into those places that we may not even want to look at in ourselves. This can be a painful process. Some of us have years of stuff that we pushed under the carpet even from our childhood. We have wounds that are unseen even to ourselves. We have hurts that are so deep and hidden and we can not reach them.
It is okay to cry out to God to heal and cleanse you in the inmost parts. He wants TRUTH on our inward parts. We can live deceptively without this inward purging. God wants to save us to the uttermost. That includes wholeness in every area. We do not need to be ashamed of our need of Him or our tears. He will walk us through every process.
He loves us so much right where we are. We do not have to perform to get Him to love us more. He already loves us and has done everything for us to bring us to Himself. He wants to heal every place we hurt. Sometimes healing can result from gaining an understanding into the effects of abuse on a life. It is not unspiritual to seek to understand things. We gain compassion as we seek to understand another as well.
5 Comments
I'd love to hear your thoughts
My Books
Linktree
Support Us
Thank you so much for sharing this. I believe that God gave us emotions and we need to be truthful about them. Only the truth will make us free.
Yes. You can’t forgive what you don’t acknowledge.
Part of my healing process involved making up an invoice for the debt I was forgiving. That meant being real about the consequences of the crime including what courts would call “emotional pain and suffering.” It took time, and I literally wrote it out as a bill. Then wrote “tetelestai” across it – Jesus`last words on the cross. “It is finished” which was also a Greek business term meaning “paid” or “contract fulfilled.” When my hands were no longer around someone’s throat trying to make them pay it back they were open to receive the provisions and emotional healing Jesus had earned for me.
At first I tried to forgive without feeling the feelings, but that was shallow forgiveness and the issue kept sneaking up on me. Then I wallowed in self-pity. That sucked. Then I let go – and God stepped in. I could feel positive emotions again.
This speaks to me on such a deep level. Especially the part about writing out the invoice. I am prayerfully considering doing the same……
Hi, i am not sure if i read an entire article, but part of a point i want to emphasize is prayer. my understanding being the need for prayer to rise. Prayer rises out of a need to pray and all needs are based on real/actual needs. this shifts focus on a need which is anything you can not live without correlating to your psychology, emotions, physical like healing, food and shelter. This is exemplified in Luke 18, an instance Jesus compares Justice to an adversary-troubled widow as a clear need as she lost her freedom. her persistence on a Judge[could be used interchangeably with God] reflects torment she receives from her overpower. As a result she begs intercession persistently and wins(her prayer gets answered). God bless you all
Such truth. You can feel it in your spirit when it’s spoken out. This piece does exactly that; it resonates with me very strongly. God doesn’t just want us to stand strong in the midst of all that come against us. No, He wants us to stand against it as a whole being, spirit, soul and body and that doesn’t happen by shoving things down because they may be ugly.