Mosaics

Mosaics are made of shattered glass, and there is beauty in being broken.

The saddest thing I’ve ever seen is not someone broken over loss or bawling in grief. The saddest thing I’ve ever seen is someone totally numbed.

When you go to the dentist to get teeth pulled, the dentist is trying to correct a problem. Before they pull the teeth, they put a shot in your mouth that numbs the pain. The shot hurts a little, but not nearly as much as it would hurt if you weren’t numb. Afterwards, you feel okay. Sure your lips feel puffy and lifeless and you can’t eat anything, but at least you don’t feel the pain. But what happens when the numbness wears off?

What happens when you feel the pain you tried so hard to avoid?

Painkillers! That’s right. More and more drugs temporarily alleviate the pain and then again you unnaturally feel okay. Now you can eat and drink and go about your life and somehow feel just fine.

While this process works for coping with outside physical pain, it destroys people when they apply it to inside heart pain.

People are hit with a problem, a bad grade on a test, fighting parents, divorce, insecurity, impossible expectations, not feeling good enough, disease, financial loss, disappointment, abuse, a break up, or whatever other crappy problems that come in life. People handle the problems in two ways, by numbing the effects or by choosing to feel and process the pain as they fix their eyes on hope, knowing that comfort is coming. The latter of the two is by far the most rewarding, but also the most work.  So each of us has to make a choice. Is it worth it to finally be healed?

Let’s see.

The first option, numbness, comes to people who have been hit by extremely hard pain a ridiculous amount of times. They hurt so deeply and see no hope.  They see no point in dwelling on the hurt because they see no avenue for healing, or at least not one worth taking. They find it easier to cut off all emotions rather than risk feeling the hardest ones. They distract themselves with life and business and friends and events. They drink and drink. They have sex or everything else before sex. They pour themselves into family and relationships, but don’t open themselves up completely. They say they are fine, and at times they convince themselves they are, but beneath the shot of numbness lies years of hurt and pain that demand to be felt.

When people continue to drown themselves in whatever substance they can find, they get to a point where they can’t help themselves anymore. They are empty. Nothing fills, nothing satisfies. It’s a point so low and unfathomable and so far from God that life doesn’t seem worth it, being healed doesn’t seem worth it, trying to figure out truth and answers doesn’t seem worth it. I’ve seen this point in neighbors, in friends, in my parents, in people I love and it shatters my heart.

Jesus spoke of these people saying, “Indeed in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says: ‘You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.” Matthew 13:14-15

Jesus is speaking of people who hear his teaching and his parables, but instead of asking questions and seeking and trying to know more, they harden their heart to him. They think they can do it on their own. They don’t think it’s worth figuring out. Yet at any point Jesus says come to me and I will heal you because he knows that his way brings real life and real joy and real satisfaction, and he so desires that for all people.

I’m so sorry if you have experienced so many hard things that it doesn’t seem worth it to feel the pain anymore or to try to process or figure life out. I’m sorry if you are at a point where you can’t handle the pain, where you would rather feel nothing than feel the weight of the world crushing your soul. Dear love I am sorry. I am sorry if your heart is hard and your soul is numb and nothing seems worth it anymore.

But I have good news and my heart yearns to share with you.

This news is not a temporary escape, it is not a quick fix, it does not give immediate gratification, but it promises a life of pain and joy, a life of purpose and satisfaction and fulfillment, a life of overwhelming love and comfort like you have never experienced before.

This news makes the effort worth it and by comparison nothing else in life is worth anything when this news is understood because it is beautiful, awakening, refreshing, life-giving news.

The answer is Jesus. How do I deal with the pain? How do I not remain numb? I run to Jesus. I pray and pray and pray and read and read and have conversation and set my mind and heart and soul on good things.

Jesus is a man who suffered every type of pain and anguish in the highest amount so that you could have life. He didn’t do this so you could have an okay life or even a content life.

Psalm 66:12 says “We went through fire and through water yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.”

Jesus desires you to reach a place of abundance. You go through fire and through water, but through Jesus you reach a place of abundant joy, abundant love, abundant satisfaction. Jesus promises a full life, a joyful life, a life of comfort and rest and healing and challenges and growth and goodness.

Hebrews 3 talks about a man named Moses who God used to bring his chosen people, the Israelites, out of slavery and into freedom. However, once God rescued the people from slavery, they hardened their hearts to him. They made their own gods and their hearts turned from God. Speaking in reference to these people God proclaimed, “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion on the day of testing in the wilderness where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation and said, They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways. As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.”

The audience being spoken to is being warned to not harden their hearts like the Israelites did when they were in rebellion against God. The sought after their own gods to try to fill the place of the One true God. God was angry because he loved these people so well and so faithfully, and they still didn’t choose him. Thankfully, today we have the opportunity to choose differently. Today when you hear God’s voice, don’t harden your heart any longer. Let God in.

Jesus says, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28

Peter writes, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”

And Psalm 55:22 “Cast our cares on the Lord and he will sustain you.”

Proverbs 3:6 “In all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”

James 4:8 “Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands you sinners and purify your hearts you double-minded.”

Matthew 7:7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

Psalm 107: 19-21” Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He sent forth his word and healed them; he rescued them from the grave. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men.”

Christ calls himself comforter, redeemer, healer, and friend and he wants to be all of that and so much more for you.

But his way, the way of feeling the pain and surrendering and processing in order to heal is not easy. You will break and you will hurt, but gradually and ultimately you will be miraculously healed and restored by the only One who can satisfy you forever. No longer will you have to live in chaotic business, in chains of trying to please others or be good enough. No longer will you have to search for temporary alleviation of pain. No longer will you be numbed.

Let the Lord be your escape.

I invite you, I entreat you because I so deeply love you to cry out to the Lord. Humbly beg him to come into your life again because you can’t and don’t want to do it on your own anymore. You don’t want to be alone. You want to feel the pain so you can finally feel his overwhelming comfort and love. You want to process and you don’t want to be hard and numb. Ask him to save you, ask him to process with you, ask him to heal you, ask him to put people alongside you that support you and love you and Him. Thank Him for never letting you go. Realize your need for Him alone and surrender all you are to Him because He wants to nail your pain to the cross and make you new. Let Him make you new.

Praise God that he take our brokenness and heals. Praise God that he uses all things for our good and His glory. Praise God that he never leaves us or forsakes us. Praise God that he never gives up on us. Praise God that through perseverance we have joy.

Praise God for His gift of inexpressible and glorious joy. Praise God for boldness and courage and for doing impossible things. Praise God for melting hearts of stone. Let all the earth praise the Lord.