The brightest diamond;

Jesus Christ, himself, could’ve done it alone. He was perfect in faith, clean in heart… but even Christ chose to align himself in fellowship and have intimacy with other believers as well as befriend sinners! If anyone had the right to do it alone it was Him. He didn’t. We shouldn’t either.

We all carry a lot of disappointment, frustration, and sadness inside.  Our hearts, minds, and dreams are huge, wonderful, and incurably restless. In them, we intuit the Divine, its hugeness and its mystery. We don’t easily absorb limits, humiliations, indignities, rejections, and disappointments. We hurt and that does something to us.

When we turn away in coldness from someone or something we once loved, perhaps even from God and religion, we usually do so out of hurt, wounded pride, out of the need to protect ourselves and keep our dignity intact. While that’s understandable, it isn’t life giving.
 

What can we do with wounded pride? With disappointment? With jealousy? With the sense of having been wronged? What can we do with all those feelings that invite us to become cold, bitter, angry, and cynical? What can we do when we’ve sinned and betrayed our own dignity and dreams?
 

The natural temptation is to deny, to lie, to pretend that none of this is happening inside us. And so when we’re asked how we are, we generally say we’re fine, even when our hearts are bleeding, our jealousy is raging, our faces are tense, our eyes are sad, our dignity is compromised, and our fists are clenched.
 

Whenever we deny that we’re wounded, we prepare the perfect breeding ground for bitterness, anger, cynicism, coldness, and rage. When we don’t recognize and accept our wounds and frustrations, we easily grow cold, grow hard, and toughen our skins, minds, and hearts. We turn away in bitterness from what’s soft and life giving to what’s hard so as to put a protective shell over our wounded pride. It seems the only way to preserve ourselves.

There are so many different situations that come across our paths in life. But it’s all in the way we think. We can get past the brick walls that we come to. We can get through the trials we face. But I have found, the best way to do it, is through the One who knows and sees our hurts…God.

If there is one thing God has taught me of late, it is that after pain comes joy. Seriously, there is always a reason to be happy during painful times. God always gives us something to be thankful for, it doesn’t matter how great our pain.

Being alone can feel awkward. It’s easy to equate aloneness with loneliness. I have seen people who never seem to stop moving and “doing,” and I ask myself if they are afraid to stop and face themselves, their lives, their fears, their emotions? Distractions keep the days moving. But is this living the abundant life God meant for us?

I have come to believe that it’s a powerful thing to be able to be alone with God for long periods of time, having trained oneself not to feel guilty, not to be lonely, and to be refreshed by God in that place of solitude. I think we were made for solitude with God. It’s the place where real relationship happens.

 How have I changed in these years? Who have I become? What has God taught me in the quietness with Him?

The opponent is the voice that encourages you to withhold your love from others when you feel hurt, abandoned, and unloved. It is the voice that taunts, “You are not good enough to pursue a relationship with this person. He/She will surely discover all of your faults and run the other way”. It is the voice that tells you that you are better off alone and not worthy of love- not from others or the Creator. It is the voice that tells you that no one on earth could possibly understand you or meet your needs, so you should try your best to fulfill them on your own. It is the voice that prompts you to protect your self worth at all costs.

What is the purpose of these painful thoughts? The opponent designs them to keep you isolated and in an extremely needy state. And you know by know what happens when you are in this state. You become desperate to fill the void you feel inside. Instead of sharing your love unconditionally, the opponent motivates you to do the opposite- to receive or take unconditionally leaving you feeling even less worthy than you felt before.