Matters of the Heart: Waiting in the Pain

Why can’t I just fix things? Why won’t my loneliness go away? Sometimes my loneliness feels so massive that it threatens to envelop me.

I was in a vortex the week between Christmas and New Year’s, with contributing factors including family drama, singleness, cancelled plans, and crazy hormones. In retrospect, these are considerable issues, but I never realize how much they impact me until I am sobbing with my friend about how much my life sucks (purely a hypothetical situation, of course).

Here’s what you need to know about me. I am single and moving towards the back half of my thirties. While I would love to be married, I enjoy living as fully as I can within my circumstances. I’m fine to go to movies on my own and generally try to not let my lack of a spouse stop me. I am coming out of a time of confusion over work, church, and my vocation. This experience has led me to seek and pray about every part of my life. It has led to some fun changes too, such as pursuing improv comedy. However, some areas of my life feel very much in process. I’m still figuring it out. (Note: I will never figure it all out on this side of life).

Matters of the Heart: Living with Emotional Pain

Welcome to Matters of the Heart, folks. I've had this series in mind for several months now. As a trained spiritual director I am drawn to the experience of the heart, both in my own life and in the lives of others. I hope you'll join me in delving into the parts of ourselves that can so often go unshared; putting words to the beauty, the anguish, the emptiness, the heroism, the strength, and the weakness that these unseen parts of ourselves can so quietly contain.

Kicking off this series I offer my own experience of living with emotional pain. Let's just jump right in, shall we?

So, we all go through pain, right? We all suffer a broken heart at some point (or many points) in our lives. It's part of life after all. In this post I wanna zero in on the kind of emotional pain that lasts longer than a few days or even a few weeks - the kind of emotional pain connected to loss, betrayal, difficult circumstances, difficult relationships, chemical or emotional depression, past trauma, mistakes, and failures - just to name a few.

Let's get a little real about being on the path to healing. It can be a loooooooong road. I'm talking about when you're working on things but the pain is still with you - when you're working through grief, when you're walking out forgiveness, when the doctors are trying to get your dosage right, when you're trying to let go of regret - the day-to-day of that kind of experience - when you can't make the pain go away or even lessen it - when you're in the middle of a process and you're living with emotional pain.

I won't pretend to have all the answers. In fact, I'll tell you right now that I definitely DO NOT! I just want to share my own experience of living with pain - my own heart journey on the path to healing and letting go.




This past year I've been dealing with reoccurring situational depression. Life as a busy, sleep-deprived mama in a hectic and strange year, with a minuscule support system, and some self doubt thrown into the mix have combined with situations in my life to wreak havoc on my emotional life. My pain isn't constant. It ebbs and flows as it's triggered by situations and then eased by time and acceptance and letting go. In the day-to-day, here's how I'm walking through my pain.




I breathe. I can't stop the pain. I can't control the degree of pain that I feel. But I can breathe. That's something I can do and it helps me. It brings me solace that I can do something.

When you can't stop the person who is gossiping about you, when you can't turn back time and do things differently, when you can't change the situation that is breaking your heart, you can still breathe.

I feel. I allow myself to feel my feelings - to feel the pain - to let it hurt. I'm a big proponent of living in reality and of facing the truth. It also... just feels right. No denial. No bracing. No wincing. Just embracefully feeling. It's almost as if I have to let my pain be mine before I can give it away.

I pray. I ask God for help. I ask God for guidance. I ask God for relief. Sometimes, I just ask why. I lean on His promises. I remind myself that God is with me, that He cares for me, that He's got me.

I get angry. I get angry at myself. I get angry at others. I get angry at God. I get angry at my emotions. I try not to act out in anger. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I fail.

I look on the bright side, so to speak. I turn my attention to all the good that is in my life - and there is so very much. I try to be thankful for my wonderful husband, my sweet children, my comfortable, peaceful, warm, and joyful (albeit, crazy) home. 

That last one is the hardest for me. It can feel like an uphill battle. I keep at it though. At the very least my gratitude muscle gets a little exercise.




I choose love. I remind myself that "love covers a multitude of sins" - that others are fighting their own battles. I turn away from my desire for vengeance. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. I try to give them grace. Another hard one.

I say, "I forgive," and I ask God to help me forgive. I say, "I let go," and I ask God to help me let go. I say, "I can't do this," and I fall on the One that I love.

I breathe. I remind myself that He's got me.

Some day this pain will be gone, like other pains I've walked through before. But while I'm in process, that's how this one simple gal is living with her emotional pain.

Hope you'll join me for the rest of the series. I've got some great guest writers coming up that'll be sharing some pretty special parts of themselves with y'all. You won't wanna miss it.

Peace, folks.

More posts in this series:

Love and Basketball

Empty Nesting

Waiting in the Pain
An Unnatural Leader