“The Ides of March” Series … Prompt #31 – “The antidote to pain.”

My last scheduled tryst with creativity for the month … how I will miss the daily routine – and yet be so grateful for more time!

The antidote to pain?

You know what it is, but your brain gets tired of hearing the “right” answer, and tries to mask the pain with every other alternative – that one love song that seems pretty to the ears, but cuts your heart deeper. That late night out with friends laughing till you can’t hear your brain scream anymore. That endless scrolling through Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or Pinterest looking for anything and everything to distract you, trying to ignore the needle-sharp pricks of discontent and loneliness. Just one more selfie, trying to prove yourself to the world. Just one more workout, because if you’re hurting physically, you’re not hurting emotionally anymore.

Whatever it is, you think that it will stop the ache in your heart. I do it too – reaching for all my facades of comfort that give temporary relief but don’t chase away the deep roots of pain that cling when everything else is turned off, put away, and silenced … and it’s only me and my brain left.

The brain, that wicked serpent of lies, who won’t stop whispering … whispering until the cesspools of poison grow ever wider until you think you will explode with the weight of it all. So you go to sleep and hope and pray that in the morning it will be gone and the pain will be over.

And it’s not.

Because we’re not dealing with the cause … we’re dealing with the symptoms.

Friends, there is no way we can cure the hurt that others inflict on us. We cannot stop another person from lashing us with emotional pain. We cannot make them change, we cannot change the way it feels in our hearts.

The only One who does hold the antidote is Christ Himself. He absorbs all the pain and hurt into Himself, and when we run to Him in tears, He enfolds us and takes that burden upon Himself.

And sometimes all you can do is re-read Psalm 116 until you almost have it memorized:
“I love the LORD, for He heard my voice; He heard my cry for mercy.
Because He turned His ear to me, I will call on Him as long as I live …

“Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the LORD has been good to you.
For you, O LORD, have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling,
That I may walk before the LORD in the land of the living ….

“O LORD, truly I am your servant; I am your servant, the son of your maidservant;
You have freed me from my chains.”

Focus on Jesus instead of the intensity of the pain, and He will take it upon Himself.

Focus on giving your anxieties to Him and He will bring peace.

Focus on His promises, and He will never let you down. He always comes through.

Don’t try to analyze how or why or when. Just trust Him. He knows what He’s doing. And even when we don’t, we always have a safe refuge in His loving arms.

Love IS the antidote for pain. Because God is love. And He loved us so much, He couldn’t bear to see us suffer with no relief. So He sent His Son to take all that suffering and eradicate its triumph. He is the triumphant One, the One who through Gospel scars and Gospel sweat-drops of blood made a way for us to be intimately loved by our Father.

He cares about you, dear friend. He’s crying with you through the pain. And He will never let you go. He promised.