How to Find Beauty in the Midst of Pain
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We all want the same thing: to feel loved, known, seen, accepted. Even so, we've somehow become the greatest of pretenders believing we're only worthy of those things if we're PERFECT, have it altogether, fit within the mold.We walk around with this "I'M FINE," mentality. Everybody is 'fine' with their shiny masks covering their pain.
When did we become so good at hiding? When did we become so good at pretending? Why do we think we're only worthy of love when and if we're perfect? Why do we hide our pain and brokenness when it's one of the most common of human experiences?
We build walls to protect ourselves only to end up in more pain than before as the isolation traps the broken pieces of our lives. And it's exhausting. There's something endearing being around small children—they don't know they're supposed to hide their pain…they cry—they want you to kiss it better—and then they run off and play again. But at some point we learn to hide…and we become really good at it. We get kicked and shoved around by life—we get the snot kicked out of us a few times…so we build walls to protect ourselves. We hide our pain—because pain means weakness—we don't know who is safe + who isn't to truly let our guards down with.
EVERYONE IS WALKING AROUND LIKE THEY'RE FINE + on the inside: crippled with fear, battling depression, eating disorders, pornography addictions, self-hatred, and it's exhausting. And lonely… What if we chose to remove the masks and invite others into our pain? There's something distinct that happens to us and in us when we experience heartache.
When life hits us like a ton of bricks and everything falls to pieces. Somehow it's in those grey areas of our lives that we find unexpected beauty, comfort, rest--it's counter intuitive and it doesn't make sense. What if the existence of brokenness meant that our story isn't over yet? What if we believed pain doesn't have the last word? What if we removed our masks and invited love, hope, community into those painful areas of our lives? I think we'd be shocked at the redemption we'd discovered. Because something transformative happens in the breaking, and it's in the rebuilding that we experience inexplicable beauty. With you on the journey
XO,