Sutures of the Shared

I knew a blog update was long overdue. It was time to post about something. But there are so many somethings, it's hard to know where to begin.

Sometimes, I feel like writing is futile. That anything I say, in an effort to understand and be understood, will simply come across as foolish, selfish even.

Tonight, past pains reared up unexpectedly as I was starting to work on my Bible study for tomorrow. The circumstances surrounding them are so typical, anyone could probably tell the exact same story. But the severity of the pain, the process, the timing, are in a class all their own.

Then again, I return to the reality that we've all faced tsunamis of horrible things, experiences in life we wish we could forget. I am not unique in this. I'm sure we could all relay stories of awakening from a dream which felt so real, into a reality that seared like a knife blade into the heart. Stories of abandonment, of the feeling of absolute failure, and the realization of complete of powerlessness as life slips away.

So how could my story be important amid the endless ocean of other stories? And some, far greater than my own.

But that's really not the point, is it? The point isn't who suffered the most, whose hurt was the greatest, who faced death. The point is that we have this commonality, a need to share, and to know that we are not alone.

We all need to be understood. Sometimes that understanding comes from what someone else experienced, what someone else wrote. When someone expresses exactly the way you felt in that one freeze-framed moment of life, you know you're understood.

I think we all long for that. We crave that knowledge that someone else walked a similar road, that we are not alone in our fights and struggles. We crave the knowledge, too, that someone else succeeded. They made it out alive, stronger, wounded but healing, and we can do it too.

I told God tonight, as my wounds resurfaced, that I wanted them to be healed, filled with him. So many wounds get stuffed down, suppressed to a place we think they will be forgotten. But we can only do so much covering, so much stuffing, before things begin to show.

Honestly, I'm tired of covering everything up with a happy face and complacent attitude. I want it gone, done, healed and not hidden. Granted, healing takes time, but it's worth it. And right now, that's what I have, time.

I know I'm not alone in this either. Others have wounds, new and fresh or old and festering, that must be healed. What's it going to take for us to achieve this healing? In some part, I know it's the sharing, the stories, the understanding. God does his work, and part of that includes us, the body of Christ.

So tonight, I know my story, your story, isn't foolish or selfish. It's necessary.