“Consider our little friend here,” Papa began. “Most birds were created to fly. Being grounded for them is a limitation within their ability to fly, not the other way around. You, on the other hand, were created to be loved. So for you to live as if you were unloved is a limitation, not the other way around. Living unloved is like clipping a bird’s wings and removing its ability to fly. Not something I want for you.”
Have you ever thought about the fact that if we live immersed in our pain we are living as if we are unloved?
If God is indeed good and God takes away our pain, then if we choose not to let the pain go, then we are choosing to stay immersed in our pain. Thus living as if we are not loved.
Papa (God) goes on to say, “Mack, pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly. And if it’s left unresolved for very long, you can almost forget that you were ever created to fly in the first place.”
Maybe that is where some of us are right now. Maybe that is where some of the people we love dearly reside. They rest in the darkness of the pain. The problem with resting in the darkness of the pain is we do forget what it means to truly live again.
A wise woman was once battling cancer, after she had battled cancer at least 5 other times. She was in the hospital after some intense gastro-intestinal surgery to remove new places of cancer that had been found. The recovery from this type surgery was arduous and there was no end date to when her hospital recovery would end.
I visited her on Saturday evening and it was one of the very rare times when I found her alone. As we talked she shared with me that it was in the quietness of the moments that her fears and sadness would come close to engulfing her spirits. She said she knew how important it was to remain positive, but in the silence of the night, it took a conscious effort for her not to give in to the fear, sadness, and pain.
Before I could ask how she went about doing it, she said,
“I decided I am only going to give myself five minutes. I look at the clock (which hung directly in front of her bed), and I note that I have five minutes. Then I cry, let myself feel the fear and anxiety, I acknowledge my sadness. BUT – then when that five minutes is over, I stop. On through the night, as I hear those thoughts creep back into my mind, I let them go. I tell myself, “NO! You’ve already had your 5 minutes of sadness and pain.”
What if each of us began living like that?
When we face adverse situations, if we give ourselves time and room to truly feel them, but then the next step is we tell ourselves, “No!” You’ve already wallowed in it long enough. It is time to let it go.” And then we actually stop ourselves from thinking about the negatives . . . and we let go of the pain!
Wouldn’t it be a new day?
Hear these words from the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians,
7-10 Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,
My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.
Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size-abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.