Itend to feel things deeply. Since I’ve known Christ, my heart has grown even more tender. Since I’ve experienced my own suffering, there’s been an increase in the lament over the lost and wounded – often greater than the anguish itself.
In other words, the sorrows, the mere emotions that once pelted my heart have taken on human form. The emotions alone are no longer what my heart contains, but rather, the realization that sin, the pride of life, the lustful heart…they lead to separation from God. Our darkened hearts create a great chasm, keeping us from intimacy with the very ONE that our souls longs for. We are desperate and needy people so fragile, who don’t stand a chance without a Redeeming God.
So when my heart is filled with the hurt over the lost and sin, when pain surrounds me…where do I go with it?
I recall one day when I walked over to my mother-in-law’s house to drop something off. No one was home. I walked into the stark bedroom where my husband had taken up residence. Thereit was, his bed. A few sparse belongings on his dresser and a bed covered with a dark blue blanket. I knelt down, running my hand over the covers. I began to weep. This lonely room, this darkened corner was a snapshot of my beloved’s heart. His world was one of fear, control, pride and addiction. He belonged in our home, his bed should have been mine too. I wept bitter tears from the deepest hollows of my being over his sin, his separation from God. Our marriage was important, the strained relationship with his children equally so. Yet, nothing, absolutely nothing was more vital that his soul – he had locked himself into the prison of addiction and nothing but the grace of God could free him. I felt it deeply. It was stronger than my bond as a wife, it was bigger than any human emotion – it was warfare for this man’s eternal well-being.
Where could I go with pain like that?
Where do I still go as I prayerfully cry out for mercy on the lost and wounded?
Over the years the pain that I’ve felt has slowly turned from my own personal loss and hurt me to the realization of man’s depravity, the condition of his heart, his desperate need for a Redeeming Savior. My sorrows have taken on a more eternal perspective.
I’ll still have real, personal loss and sorrows.
I”ll have to go before the Man of Sorrows over and over again.
I take them to the feet of the Man of Sorrows.
But my heart is moving, even in the midst of the torrential trials and tribulations to a place where I find that the eternal is of the utmost importance.
Perhaps there is someone, a circumstance, that you’ve been emotionally distressed over. Sin has left scars all over relationships and on your own heart. Emotions aren’t to be ignored, neither is the consequences from sin. However, don’t miss what is most important – that sin causes separation. A lost man is a condemned and dead man. Be willing to to take pain to Christ who understands better than you do what sorrow is and what sin does.
