When The Pain Seems Too Great Today, my heart is reminded of the pain that once was, the pain that so many of you find yourselves in today. For me, it is a distant, tender scar. It is healing, but if I stare at it long enough or touch it in just the right ways, the pain can all come rushing back. If you are in the middle of this kind of suffering, you are likely desperate for relief of any kind. Violently painful memories have carved your heart into pieces, and maybe you can't even remember what life looked like before this whirlwind of torment took over your life. Suffering takes on different forms for different people, but it is important to remember that both the repentant Unfaithful and forgiving Betrayed will experience torment. Though it might be tempting to keep score or claim that the Unfaithful has forfeited their right to feel badly, it does no one any good to go down that road. It isn't fair. It just is. To say that an unfaithful spouse doesn't experience pain is a bit like saying the same of a drunk driver who caused a crash, killing an innocent bystander. Pain and suffering are natural consequences. For the betrayed spouse, the analogy still holds. You might not have been behind the wheel, and you may have never seen this coming, but here you are: a casualty left in the rubble. Today, in the midst of whatever degree of pain you are feeling, I offer you this: God is near. He is, perhaps, closer than He has ever been. He hovers over you like a blanket, and He sees you. He does not waste pain. He didn't create it, but He will use it. I often don't comprehend why certain things have to die before new life begins, but I know and have seen that God does His best work in the desert. If you don't have a religious faith, then I invite you to look to peace or love or the universe instead--or whatever you can believe in today. Just believe in something. I know you're tired. You are so ready for this all to be over. But God sees your aches, and He hears your cries. He sees the stains on your pillows from your tears. What does it look like to lean in closer to that tenderness? Perhaps go and bury yourself in His word. If that's not your thing, maybe try to focus on someone else's suffering for a while. Sometimes, nothing helps us with our own pain as much as serving others. Either way, we can refuse to let pain be a place where we camp out forever. As Viktor Frankl reminds us: Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. What is to give light must endure burning. I choose light. -Elizabeth
