The presence of pain is a problem hiding inside of spiritual people.

Is God enough when we are hurting?

There are things in the church that we don’t talk about. Really? Really. There are people who are hurting. Do we know what to say? Can we help them? How do we help them? If we know about it, and often we don’t because they hide the icky stuff from view, do we give a routine, pat answer to a deep-seated issue? While talking with them, we may find ourselves silently asking ourselves; how much is God, them, or other factors?

Then, if we choose to get really-real, to help people in a genuine way, we start asking the harder questions. It soon becomes disheartening. These people have serious problems, yet they are believers in God. Is it a split, a spiritual splinter that can’t be removed or fixed? We know God has promised salvation and eternal life and His presence for all who believe in Him. What gives? There should be more evidence that this, in fact, is true, doable, and works.

It gets confusing. We begin to search for a common denominator. Why do people cut themselves? Why do they drink themselves to oblivion? Why are they workaholics? Why do they avoid life, run and hide, and then go and repeat the cycle, hurting more people, the casualties, as they barrel ahead going from church to church or partner to partner.

Why do some individuals build a small empire of stuff? Why do other people give up? Why do some Christians complain about anything and everything, become depressed, critical, cynical, and act in unpleasant ways? Even more complex, why do good Christian people hide their deepest heartaches and act as if everything is okay, when it is not okay? How have word curses, said long ago or in recent days, hurt and destroyed the person’s inner belief about their self? And, and, and… and then it comes home. This is about me!

I, too, have some inner pain. I’d forgotten about that, I don’t want to think about that, that hurt, it’s too painful. It doesn’t take much imagination to picture yourself back in the midst of your pain, feeling the hopelessness of it all, maybe you lost everything or that person who was important to you. It is that alone feeling, the isolating place that walls you off from others.

It may be one of those things you don’t talk about; it’s embarrassing, or shameful, or hurtful, or might seem silly to others. In each of us, there are times when everyone seems distant, and there are areas in our lives where they aren’t allowed in. You finally get it. Others fade away in the end. You may wonder to yourself, will I find a way out? Is there a solution to this spiritual condition?

Have you ever felt that kind of aloneness?

Are you tracking with me?  Do Christian people sometimes feel this way? I know they do. Men and women have, in confidence, opened up with me about their losses, molestation, abortion, rape, depression, alcoholism, sexual addiction, and so forth—and these are people in the church, and want to walk free.

They are trapped in a cycle of inner pain. Ask yourself, where do people operate in their quietest moments? (by the way, they usually avoid quiet moments) How will they find a way out? There is an answer to that question, but it comes incrementally. The way out can only be found in Jesus. And, what we find in Him isn’t trite, it isn’t temporary or illusive. It is true and complete. God can be found, and He can heal the hurt. We can live differently. It is possible to deal with internal pain.

For twenty-one years my life was imprisoned in pain, a pain others could not see. I, myself, was also blind to it. I didn’t recognize it for what it was because I was an over-achiever and a spiritual person, and I believed I was doing everything right. My pain was invisible to others and to me. I was a good person, a sincere Christian. I loved God. I served God. I was obedient to God. I didn’t run or avoid. I tried not to blame.

Yet there were times when I cried alone, sitting against a tree trunk in the orchard where I farm, a place away from my children where no-one could see my mask removed, the place where raw-emotions came to the surface after an act of indifference toward me made me feel like a nothing, an unwanted person. The hidden pain inside of me was a constant companion. I could not shake its deadness. It was a cloak that draped my soul in sadness.

I became accustomed to keeping a stiff upper lip. I did my best. I worked hard. I was sincere, thoughtful, kind, not given to anger or self-centered behaviors. But, the pain was there and I suffered. Only God knew the ache in my heart, the wound from which the hurt originated that would bleed time and time again. It wasn’t something I could share with others. Not even my best friends. Some would have, but I was private and wanted to protect my family.

We have different stories. Negative experiences vary in density from slight, to moderate, to severe. Some people get stuck for years by a word curse said to them by someone who was thoughtless. There are many of them: I don’t love you. No one could ever love you. I’m leaving and don’t try to stop me.

Then there’s the type that demeans a person’s core worth, sense of value, and self-perception. Why’d you do that? You’re so stupid! Can’t you ever do anything right? I knew you’d mess it up. These are words that translate in heart language to your inner person a message that tells you that you are faulty, that you really don’t matter, in-fact, you never did all that much. At some point, when repeated often or taken to heart, they become internalized and become part of a belief system about self that believes a painful untruth.

I’ve heard the stories. I find them hard to listen to because they are demeaning, hurtful, sad. There was the woman married to a religious man who was a tyrant at home, who demeaned often and even spanked her in front of their seven children for some ridiculous offense, the teenage daughter who was slapped by her pastor-dad for not honoring the church’s standard of dress, the person who was cheated on and then abandoned by their mate (many of these), the woman who was forced through manipulation to have an abortion by her husband (or boyfriend), the man whose girlfriend, after he begged her to let him raise the child, had an abortion anyway, the person who was molested, raped, beaten, or abused–the list is long in length.

There are many, many forms of abuse and mistreatment that have contributed to these dark secrets and deep wounds that continue to fester even when they are buried or ignored through self-gratification and self-medicating forms of denial.

The thing is, these internal messages don’t just dissipate at the point of salvation, their messages have left impressions on our psyche and a lasting imprint on our heart. One cannot just pretend they don’t exist or push them aside. But, that’s the problem. We will cope in some way. It is in the coping that we have blinded our hearts to its true state.

So we do whatever we can do to deal with the pain, to remediate its hold on us.

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N. L. Brumbaugh, part of a spiritual guide
PURCHASE: THE MEETING PLACE by N. L. BRUMBAUGH

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