Life has a way of turning on you at times, doesn’t it?  Out of nowhere it hits you with the unexpected and leaves you wishing you could just stop and get off the merry-go-round for a while.  Unfortunately, you can’t.  The world keeps spinning and everyone else keeps moving.

Somehow you have to try to keep up.

With the unexpected twist can come hurt and you don’t get to decide anything except how you are going to survive and somehow keep from falling off that merry-go-round and making a mess of your hurt. 

It really doesn’t matter what causes the heart to hurt. Life is filled with a thousand different ways of applying painful twists and turns, and so are people.  It really matters most what you do with that hurt.

So I’ve been staring numbly at this page for the past few weeks trying to decide what to do with it all.  My twist is a hurt of disappointment, rejection, and anger; but mostly, sadness at the shame of it all.

Not the internal kind of condemning shame; but shame over a dream stolen away.

Shame at the loss of what could have been, but isn’t any longer.

Shame at the brazenness of our enemy and his traps; and yet, still how easily humanity falls into them.

When life twists and turns, emotions twist along with it.  Sometimes daily; sometimes, hourly.  Especially for a mother.  Especially when it involves children.  Perhaps it’s middle-age hormones, but I’m pretty sure it’s mostly sadness and disappointment. Tears come at inopportune moments and still surprise us.

Still the question remains in front of us when life sends us that unexpected twist:

“What will you do with this hurt?”

It may seem like an insensitive question while pain is still there but–if you want to move forward rather than stay forever stuck– you are forced to answer.

“What will you do with this hurt?”

My mind moves to the time when Jesus stood at the grave of one He loved dearly.  He wept real tears.  I often wonder why the Son of God would cry while filled with the knowledge that He was about to resurrect Lazarus.

It seems like a strange precursor to a miracle.

But Jesus was like that.  He did what was least expected maybe because our expectations are so often wrong, misguided, or far below God’s expectations.  He did things because they were important.

So here I am today grappling over why it was so important.

Maybe you’ve thought the same thoughts and assumed, like many, that he wept for us and our sadness.

Maybe He wept for the lack of faith He witnessed by both Mary and Martha, or his very own disciples.

But maybe He wept for another reason.

Maybe He wept for the loss blown to humanity at the hands of sin.   Maybe, it was for the shame of it all.

Maybe He wept at the shame of what could have been but yet wasn’t any longer, and instead included a reality of death, despair, and grieving hurt for the people He loved.

Maybe, as C.S. Lewis writes, it was because of this:

“….death, the punishment of sin, is even more horrible in His eyes than in ours.  The nature which He had created as God, the nature which He had assumed as Man, lay there before Him in its ignominy; a foul smell, food for worms.  Though He was to revive it a moment later, He wept at the shame;”  (Some Thoughts, God in the Dock, C.S. Lewis)

Sometimes, the precursor to the miracle is the sorrow over the shame of the loss.   The understanding that it wasn’t and still isn’t natural for people to live apart from Jesus.  It wasn’t supposed to be this way.  The stark reality that life without Him involved really ends with no life at all.  

And He wept at the reality.

So  I am living today in the revelation that life’s unexpected twists and hurt points me back to the One with names like resurrection and life.

In the shame of sin is hurt, death, and yes, many tears.   But after that is the question:

“What will you do with this hurt?”

There came a time when Jesus called for the rolling away of the stone and Martha feared that she would still see and smell only the shame.  He challenged her right there in her hurt.

“Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”  (John 11:40)

David Livingstone, 19^th century pioneer medical missionary talked about surviving the difficult twists and turns of his life with this:

“Shall I tell you what sustained me amidst the trials and hardships and loneliness of my exiled life? … It was a promise, the promise of a gentleman of the most sacred honor.  It was this promise: ‘Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.’” (Live/Dead, The Journey, D. Brogden)

We must decide, like Martha and Mr. Livingstone, whether we will believe the promise of that gentleman.  That even though all we see and smell is the shame, He can bring forth glory.  Will we trust that He can take dreams which are dead and  apply words like resurrection and life?  Will we see that, even at the deepest points of our pain, there is always this reminder pointing us back to the fact that we so desperately need Him and He will never ever leave us?

“What will you do with this hurt?”

After the weeping, place it back into the redeeming hands of a gentleman, a gentleman of the most sacred honor–anticipating a resurrection miracle where life will come forth in place of the shame.  Choose to believe that, through it all, He will never go back on His word and one day will exchange it all for a redeemed glory.