Most of my World Race Journey has included a longing for more…a hope that more is there, and a fight to find it…which sometimes looked more like trying to prove that the more didn’t exist at all.
Traveling around the world introduced me to a truer meaning of the word “poor.” Sometimes, I’ve tossed around that word in relation to myself. Now, when I make a comment like that, I almost always catch myself and recognize how far from poor I really am.
I don’t wish I was poor, and I don’t think people who are poor are glad to be hungry and in need, but I will say I think I have a deeper understanding of what Jesus meant when he said it will be harder for the rich man to enter in the kingdom of heaven.
In a book I’m reading by Richard Rohr, he talks about the sign of Jonah, which basically states that pain is the avenue to transformation.
I think in trying to find God, I still manage to numb or short circuit pain—pain from emptiness, pain from shame, and now pain from loneliness. I don’t want to feel pain, and allowing pain to enter, even though I know I can avoid it, is counter-intuitive.
But the reality for a lot of people in the world is that they have no choice but to feel the pain.
Usually, I have a choice. I feel sad, so I drive to Target and buy a new shirt. I’m lonely, so I get on Facebook or Instagram. I don’t like the way my life is going, so I turn on an episode of my favorite show and live vicariously through the character’s lives.
The problem with the patterns I’ve created to avoid pain is that my pain was intended to be a map.
Just like physical pain is a map to physical sickness, emotional pain is a map to soul wounds. Until wounds are healed, my avoidance of pain will only temporarily numb my unpleasant emotions.
I’ve recognized some cyclical patterns in my life. I'm not positive what's underneath it all, but I'm seeing that each time the pain comes up, I find a different way to treat the feeling…or numb it.
Rohr says,
“We dare not get rid of the pain before we have learned what is has to teach us. We must go inside the belly of the whale for a while. Then and only then will we spit upon a new shore and understand our call. Transformation happens through death and rising.”
I can feel myself going into a season of loneliness, and everything in me says, NO! But I’ve avoided this season so many times in my life. I don’t like to feel this ache, but I do want to actually figure out what this wound is, and actually heal.
