Learning to let the world break my heart

If there's one thing that the past 5 and a half months have taught me, it's that my lot, and the lot of all true Christians, is suffering. Pain. Anguish. Heartbreak. Perplexity. Sorrow. How could it be otherwise, when my Leader is described as "a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53)? It's incredibly difficult for me to put into words exactly what I mean, because these emotions are hidden so deeply in my soul. But I've come to realize that the more you love people, the more vulnerable you make yourself to pain. The more you invest in people and allow yourself to care--really care--about them, the more you open yourself up to hurt and soul-rending disappointment. The more you see people as PEOPLE, the less capable you are of remaining indifferent to their own struggles and slaveries. And it's heart-wrenching.

But despite all the pain, I thank God from the core of my being that He has let me go through this. He's giving me His eyes. "Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows...it was the will of the Lord to crush Him, He has put Him to grief...out of the anguish of His soul He shall see and be satisfied...He poured out His soul unto death and was numbered with the transgressors" (Isaiah 53). I'm also thankful that I didn't fully realize at the beginning that to choose to love was to choose to hurt, because I'm not sure I would have chosen this for myself.

Maybe it's strange for people back home to read this, because I don't think they know me as someone who feels this much. I don't know myself as one who feels this much. The past several months, there have been many times when I looked at myself and thought myself a stranger. I don't understand what God is doing in me...all I know is that He is conforming me to the image of His Son...and that it hurts more deeply than I ever thought it would.

But He remains the calmer of my troubled soul. "For He has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and He has not hidden His face from me, but has heard, when I cried to Him...The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek Him shall praise the Lord!" (Psalm 22:24, 26)