There is a reason we flinch and avoid engaging with difficult issues. But avoiding them doesn’t make them go away. It only allows them to build, fester, and become less manageable.
Our failure to engage difficult issues is a result of a lack of trust. Think about it, if we knew we could go through a challenging situation and come out unscathed, wouldn’t we engage them sooner. Process them when they are more manageable.
By trusting that issues can move through our emotional processing hardware, we can metabolize them effectively. This is the equipment we can build. When we use the equipment, we add additional capacity.
It is fear that keeps us from resolving issues. They grow to demand our attention because they can’t go away by themselves. It leads to overwhelm, and things get under our skin. We get triggered and react in a way that is not appropriate to the situation.
When we have a couple of these going on, it is like running too many programs in the background. Buring out our energy and taxing our bandwidth.
Trapped In A Hard Place
When I met Ronnie, he had been spent more years in prison than he had outside. While serving life without parole, he was overflowing with the hope that he would walk free. A time we were together, he recited a from memory, as a prayer. I was so moving, I asked him about it. He told me God had brought Psalm 126 to him while on lockdown. He memorized it and brought it to mind when he was a hard place, and it would bring moments of sweet, sweet fellowship with the Lord.
He was in a concrete box, with a metal door, experiencing sweet, sweet fellowship with the Lord.
In a couple of days, I had Psalm 126 memorized. It is my prayer every time I’m confined, and the walls are closing in.
Ronnie has gone to walk free and just celebrated the birth of his son. His life overflows with joy—a loving testimony to Psalm 126.
Psalm 126
When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dreamed.
Our mouths were filled with laughter,
our tounges with songs of joy.
Then they said among the nations,
“The Lord has done good things for them.”
The Lord has done great things for us,
and we are filled with joy.
Restore our fortunes, O Lord,
like streams in the Negev.
Those who sow in tears shall reap with songs of joy.
He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing,
shall return with shouts of joy,
carrying sheaves with him.
They were celebrating that they had been restored, yet in need of more restoration. Knowing that God had restored them, experiencing the reality of it, they more readily asked to make things right. Make things right in monumental ways and small ways.
God is about to turn things around. Restore our fortunes. He can do it in an instant, like bringing flowing streams to the desert. But more often than not, it is a slow, deliberate process over time like a farmer who plants the seed and waits for harvest.
When you are carrying too much stuff, it is only going to weigh you down. It is time to offload it. And the way you do it is with tears. Plant them like seeds. Plant them into the soil of God’s love. Allow him to bring forth a harvest.
The fear is if we enter, we won’t get out. Like being stuck in quicksand, any effort you make to get yourself out, only gets you more stuck.
Greg, a friend of mine, talks to me often about his self-awareness journey. He talks about hard things he has been through, but always free a place of objectivity. Like he is aware of it, but no longer in it. It was a place he had been but was no longer there. Those things didn’t affect him like they once did, because they had been processed.
Hearing him talk about examples of this over the years was the permission slip I needed to reflect on the hard things in the past I was still carrying, and also acknowledge the ones I currently face.
If you need permission to enter in, you have it. The spare key is in the light fixture to the right of the front door. Let yourself in!
How To Process A Tough Loss
When we trust that we can process difficult issues effectively, we do so more readily.
The fear that we won’t make it out to the other side keeps us from entering into it.
The losses pile up, and it causes an inability to retain emotional control. We become more reactionary and fail to respond in a way that is appropriate to what the situation demands. Or we overreact and don’t show up how the people around us need us to. Fall back on the habitual behaviors that don’t serve us well.
There is an alternative. Acknowledge what the losses are and allow them to cycle through you to heal.
Acknowledge the Loss
When we suffer a loss, the void we are left with causes consequences.
For me right now, the biggest one is my parents canceling their trip to see us due to the COVID situation. I’m in Chicago, and they are in Australia. We had been planning and looking forward to this trip for a long time.
The consequences include not being able to see my parents who I miss and don’t get to be with very often. They also miss out on a lot of my kid’s milestones, and I wanted them to be here to see their granddaughter graduate. We won’t be able to go shopping at the malls or go to excellent dinners in Chicago.
It is a loss. Every part of it sucks!
But by naming it, and acknowledge the consequences, you honor the desires in your heart. It helps you connect with others and provide emotional support.
Taking Inventory of Loss
- Remind yourself of God’s presence. He is for you. Ask the Holy Spirit to lead you.
- List out the losses you have incurred either currently or in your life story.
- For each loss, describe the consequences of not having it in your life.
- Share with a trusted friend what the loss is as a way of honoring its value in your life.
If you know every tear you cry leads to a shout of joy, would you be more willing to cry?
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You are my hiding place;
you will protect me from trouble
and surround me with songs of deliverance.
Psalm 32:7
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