Heavy

Has your heart ever been so heavy that your chest physically aches? Have you ever felt a hurt so deep that you can neither cry nor scream nor express it in mere words?

These deepest hurts are the hurts that we feel for others - a loved one experiencing a loss, a friend betrayed but who does not know the full extent of the betrayal, a country in the grips of a natural disaster. And in each of these circumstances...we are powerless to make the hurt go away.

So what do we choose to do in the face of inability? Do we shake our fists at the sky? Do we find someone to blame? Do we become bitter, resentful, and cynical? Often, yes. Because that's the easy way out. The ache won't stop, and the only way to get rid of the pain is to let it harden. This mud clogging our hearts is too messy, too heavy to bear. So we let it harden into sludge, then hard-packed dirt, then eventually into stone.

It takes a powerful, loving, gracious God to turn that heart of stone into a spring of living water - to crush the stone holding it in and clean out the muck and mire. It takes a God like that to forgive where and when we are not able to on our own, to accept a circumstance beyond our "control." Because what in our lives can we possibly control, anyway? Only what we do with what we've been handed.

The question is: Now what do I do with this mud sitting in my chest? Am I going to hang onto it, or am I going to let it go?

God, I can't clean it out on my own. I'm going to need Your help.