I had a conversation recently about dealing with our hurt. Hurt and pain are interesting phenomenon really. Physical pain has a purpose. It is either letting you know that something is wrong, (like a bone is broken or muscle sprained) or it is telling you that you are growing. I remember when my brother and I were young and he grew 11.5 inches in height in one year's time. I swear I could see him growing. It was during this time that I learned that "Growing Pains" was more than just a teeny-bopper sit-com.
What I remember most is being woken up at night on occasion because my brother was in so much pain he was almost screaming. I, myself, experienced similar growing pains but nothing to the degree of his. I find it interesting that God would wire our bodies in such a way that physical growth would actual cause discomfort and even pain. What I have learned is that the same is true for all types of growth. Emotional, psychological, relational and spiritual growth also hurt in their respective ways.
I remember when I was 18. I had a great life at 18. I was out of High School, I still lived with my parents and therefore had no real bills to speak of, my primary source of income was playing in a band, which I loved, I had several terrific friends and was hopelessly in love with my girlfriend at the time. Please understand, when I say hopelessly in love I mean it. Her names was Rachel, (actual I'm pretty sure that's still her name), and I swore the sun rose and set in her smile. We laughed a lot, and she could fit in to any setting I put her in. My band friends, my church friends, my family, my friends from High School; no matter who we were with, she fit in easily and everyone loved her. I was so enamored with her and was seriously beginning to plan a marriage proposal in the upcoming months. To this day I don't think she realizes how in love with her I was.
Then one day it ended. Actually it probably ended weeks before it actually ended but the long and short of it was that it was over. I can still remember the instant it occurred to me. I could describe the moment with extreme detail and accuracy even now. But as difficult and painful as that moment was, it was nothing compared to the weeks and months that followed.
I was a mess for a long time after that. Not on the outside though. I'm too good at feigning happiness and contentment to display the agony I was truly in. No, on the outside I was just fine. Inside, however, I was a basket case. The loss of joy was such a one-eighty from where I was that my mind and emotions couldn't take it in. I was hurting so much and felt like it would never end. It wasn't long before it began to manifest physically.
I became so sick that I couldn't eat anything. When I did it just came back up within a few hours. I lost 15 pounds in two days and was so dehydrated that my temperature got to 106 degrees. I went to the emergency room where, while sitting in the waiting room, I felt I had to vomit. They let me use the restroom when I told them. I went in and vomited up some stomach acid because that is all I had in my stomach. I remember kneeling in front of my wide mouthed, white porcelain friend offering up the bitter, stinging contents of my stomach. The next thing I can recall is waking up on a gurney with an I.V. in my arm and my body drinking in it's electrolyte contents.
As I recovered alone from my physical illness over the next few days I tried to ignore the real loneliness I felt. It didn't work. So there, in my bed, I began dealing with the hurt I was going through. I decided to stop trying to go around it and start going through it. Suffice to say… it really sucked.
A close friend of mine, Mike, began to help me walk through it. He dealt with my anger, my frustration and my tears better than I could have hoped for. One of his biggest means of contribution was to assist me in discerning when I was just feeling sorry for myself and when I was really hurting. Finally after about four or five months from our Break-up, I realized that I still missed Rachel so much. Mike finally told me to just ask her to get back together. If she said yes then hey, problem solved. If she said no then at least I wouldn't be playing the "what if" game anymore.
So I did. Rachel and I had continued to talk after the break-up and even still hung out every now and then. So one night as I dropped her off I asked if thinks we could start seeing each other again. I said that i knew that there were reasons we broke up but said, "I can get past it if you can." She just said, "Let's talk about this later, John," which I understood to really mean, "No." And so we didn't talk about it later…because there was nothing to talk about. But the next morning I felt better than I had in a long, long time.
The pain and the hurt I went through sucked. Seriously, it was brutal and I don't remember ever hurting that bad before or since that time in my life. But I grew from it. I learned that I could say something like, "I can get passed it if you can." The ability to say and do that made all the difference in the relationships that followed and have impacted my marriage in an immensely positive way even today. I have come to realize that the hurt I was going through at the time wasn't emptiness or loneliness; it was just growing pains. I mean, it sucked and all at the time, but just like my brother wouldn't be 6'4" today if he didn't have his growing pains, I wouldn't be as emotionally or relationally tall as I am today if I didn't have mine.
Incidentally, despite some strange bumps in the road, Rachel and I remain in loose contact even today. We are both very happily married and actually attended each other's weddings. That bit of information really has nothing to do with this post…I just thought it was pretty cool.
What I remember most is being woken up at night on occasion because my brother was in so much pain he was almost screaming. I, myself, experienced similar growing pains but nothing to the degree of his. I find it interesting that God would wire our bodies in such a way that physical growth would actual cause discomfort and even pain. What I have learned is that the same is true for all types of growth. Emotional, psychological, relational and spiritual growth also hurt in their respective ways.
I remember when I was 18. I had a great life at 18. I was out of High School, I still lived with my parents and therefore had no real bills to speak of, my primary source of income was playing in a band, which I loved, I had several terrific friends and was hopelessly in love with my girlfriend at the time. Please understand, when I say hopelessly in love I mean it. Her names was Rachel, (actual I'm pretty sure that's still her name), and I swore the sun rose and set in her smile. We laughed a lot, and she could fit in to any setting I put her in. My band friends, my church friends, my family, my friends from High School; no matter who we were with, she fit in easily and everyone loved her. I was so enamored with her and was seriously beginning to plan a marriage proposal in the upcoming months. To this day I don't think she realizes how in love with her I was.
Then one day it ended. Actually it probably ended weeks before it actually ended but the long and short of it was that it was over. I can still remember the instant it occurred to me. I could describe the moment with extreme detail and accuracy even now. But as difficult and painful as that moment was, it was nothing compared to the weeks and months that followed.
I was a mess for a long time after that. Not on the outside though. I'm too good at feigning happiness and contentment to display the agony I was truly in. No, on the outside I was just fine. Inside, however, I was a basket case. The loss of joy was such a one-eighty from where I was that my mind and emotions couldn't take it in. I was hurting so much and felt like it would never end. It wasn't long before it began to manifest physically.
I became so sick that I couldn't eat anything. When I did it just came back up within a few hours. I lost 15 pounds in two days and was so dehydrated that my temperature got to 106 degrees. I went to the emergency room where, while sitting in the waiting room, I felt I had to vomit. They let me use the restroom when I told them. I went in and vomited up some stomach acid because that is all I had in my stomach. I remember kneeling in front of my wide mouthed, white porcelain friend offering up the bitter, stinging contents of my stomach. The next thing I can recall is waking up on a gurney with an I.V. in my arm and my body drinking in it's electrolyte contents.
As I recovered alone from my physical illness over the next few days I tried to ignore the real loneliness I felt. It didn't work. So there, in my bed, I began dealing with the hurt I was going through. I decided to stop trying to go around it and start going through it. Suffice to say… it really sucked.
A close friend of mine, Mike, began to help me walk through it. He dealt with my anger, my frustration and my tears better than I could have hoped for. One of his biggest means of contribution was to assist me in discerning when I was just feeling sorry for myself and when I was really hurting. Finally after about four or five months from our Break-up, I realized that I still missed Rachel so much. Mike finally told me to just ask her to get back together. If she said yes then hey, problem solved. If she said no then at least I wouldn't be playing the "what if" game anymore.
So I did. Rachel and I had continued to talk after the break-up and even still hung out every now and then. So one night as I dropped her off I asked if thinks we could start seeing each other again. I said that i knew that there were reasons we broke up but said, "I can get past it if you can." She just said, "Let's talk about this later, John," which I understood to really mean, "No." And so we didn't talk about it later…because there was nothing to talk about. But the next morning I felt better than I had in a long, long time.
The pain and the hurt I went through sucked. Seriously, it was brutal and I don't remember ever hurting that bad before or since that time in my life. But I grew from it. I learned that I could say something like, "I can get passed it if you can." The ability to say and do that made all the difference in the relationships that followed and have impacted my marriage in an immensely positive way even today. I have come to realize that the hurt I was going through at the time wasn't emptiness or loneliness; it was just growing pains. I mean, it sucked and all at the time, but just like my brother wouldn't be 6'4" today if he didn't have his growing pains, I wouldn't be as emotionally or relationally tall as I am today if I didn't have mine.
Incidentally, despite some strange bumps in the road, Rachel and I remain in loose contact even today. We are both very happily married and actually attended each other's weddings. That bit of information really has nothing to do with this post…I just thought it was pretty cool.
