At some point, you’ll have to decide that “this” just isn’t working.

 

This hurricane cycle of sweeping pain will meet you at your daily door until you open it for the King.

 

Running from the rage and pain will get you nowhere but lifeless and utterly exhausted.

 

Aren’t you tired?

 

The answer waits with open arms, but you keep running into the arms of many others.

 

The arms of people.

The arms of alcohol.

The arms of drugs.

The arms of work.

 

All hold empty promises that will only feed the emptiness until it’s unbearable.

 

You’ve had what seems like an art of hiding. Yet nothing at all is hidden except to you.

 

You’ll wake up tomorrow, and it will be the same until you surrender to the need for healing with Christ.

 

I know the whole pick yourself up by the bootstraps routine and pretend it isn’t still there. You’re hearing from one who lived it.

 

It was like a shadow that followed me around no matter how much I laughed, how much I worked, or how strong I seemed to others.

 

Jesus called me to Himself so that He could peel back the layers of pain and expose all the enemy had done. It was way more complex than I even knew.

 

Yet with every unwelcome sting came a binding up from Christ that tended to the soul pain, and when I was ready He would expose the next wound in need of dressing.

 

He gently pulled arrows from my heart and back, poured in a healing oil, and added a good dose of divine desire to help others also overcome.

 

Within my own process came new vision. I could see myself in others. My own pain stared back at me and seemed to call with the compassion of Christ to now go rescue others.

 

Listen, friend…

 

If you want to enter into the divine application and ministry need of hurting hearts, then you must walk out your own process of healing.

 

There will be no skipping over it, no pressing it down, and no ignoring the painful issues. Jesus is way too good for that.

 

You’ll be at a stalemate until you turn around and look fully into the face of Christ Jesus and acknowledge the truth that…

 

“Lord, I can’t do this on my own anymore.”