Sometimes, no matter how much you want to protect your loved ones from being hurt, you can’t. You’ve got to let them get hurt. You’ve got to let them experience pain. [Or] else, nothing will happen.
Sometimes, no matter how much you want things to be okay, for things not to happen because you know it’s bad and hurtful…you can’t. Because it should be happen. It won’t be okay until it’s not. It has to be not fine first before it becomes fine. It has to be rough before it becomes smooth. You have to get hurt before you realize what’s right, what’s true [, what's noble].
It’s never easy. Love, faith, relationships. If it’s too easy, it’s not true. It’s not real. For it to be real, it’s got to hurt. Not the shallow heartache, the one that just makes you rant but still have the strength to do other things. It’s got to hurt in a way that it pierces your soul and heart, where all you could think of is that thing, and you beg and plead for it not to hurt, but you know it will. You try to avoid it, try to keep it from happening, but it still does. You cry, wishing for your tears would be enough to stop it, but it doesn’t. It hurts. You hurt. Everyone hurts.
[BUT] IT HAS TO HAPPEN. IT MUST. To avoid it would mean darkness. Death. To face it had on, even without any clue of what will happen [except that it would hurt] will bring truth and life.
Hurt, truth, life. Ironic, but true. That’s what life really is. That’s how one really lives. To know that to live is to hurt, to avoid pain is to die.
- March 4, 2007, 1:20 am
Well said. Sometimes, in order to truly learn, you’ve got to know failure and misery. As long as you have faith in yourself, God and others… you’ll rise from the ashes. As the saying goes, “What doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger.” My parents often tell me the harsh truth about my actions and choices… sometimes they’ll disapprove and often, they’ll let me make my own mistakes. Tough love.
Fruityoaty: Ah yes, tough love. That’s the term. It’s not about being pessimistic, but just facing reality: life is never easy. We get hurt, but it makes us people of real “substance”. :)
I have had similar experiences happen to me throughout my life. The most recent was when my parents divorced. There are many details I won’t go into, but it left me feeling like an earthquake had come into my life and left me with the rubble.
It’s been a slow process, but God is restoring me. I like these verses in Isaiah 61:1,4….
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
…They will rebuild the ancient ruins
and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
that have been devastated for generations.
I love that picture: rebuild, restore and renew! I’m so thankful for what God is able to do even when the hurt comes into our lives.
~Shelley