Has life ever felt like too much? Have you ever experienced too much rejection? Too many people and situations have disappointed you? Or felt your heart break one too many times? I’ve been there. Too many times. These experiences are unseen and what seems like, never-ending. But as a Christian, have you ever thought about how we should respond when we experience heartache, rejection, or disappointment?
It would be easy to distract ourselves from the pain and walk numbly to the situation at hand. I know how that goes because I’ve been there. BC (before Christ) that’s how I handled things. I numbed myself with whatever I could. Drugs, alcohol, people, self-harm, etc. I was of the world, so I dealt with those situations as the world did. I was left broken and shattered with no healing taking place. Only a temporary fix.
After only a little while of fully surrendering my life to Christ, one of my best friends at the time got into a car accident on his way to meet me for his birthday dinner. My heart broke as he was headed to the hospital in an ambulance. Worry and sadness began to fill my body. And let’s just say, I didn’t handle the situation well.
This accident happened so suddenly that I didn’t know how to process what just took place. Being a new Christian, I handled the situation the only way that I knew how. I decided to turn to drugs to make me feel better and numb the sadness that I felt for my friend.
Doing drugs fixed the way that I felt for that night. But in the morning, I felt so much shame because of my choice to go do drugs rather than go visit my friend in the hospital. The pain, the sadness, the regret, and the blame all came back. And it was overwhelming.
But then I ran to Jesus. He reminded me that I was a new creation, forgiven and loved. Deeply loved. And never alone.
I no longer turn to drugs to help me feel better. Majority of the time, I turn to Jesus first. But there are still times where I turn to other things when I experience unseen disappointments, heartache or rejection.
Maybe you handle situations that you can’t change by getting high, going to social media, watching tv, eating food, or turning to people for an instant fix.
But if we’re honest, those things don’t actually make us feel better… they just cover up the pain for a while. It’s like putting a bandaid on a cut that needs stitches.
If you only cover up the wound, it won’t ever heal. You need to actually get work done for there to be true healing taking place.
The same goes for us. When we experience heartaches in life, if we turn to everything but God, we will feel disappointed and unsatisfied forever. But if we go to Jesus and look for healing in Him, we can trust and know that He is going to fill us with all that we need.
All we need is to look to Jesus. Life will disappoint us, but He never will.
Let’s take a look at the word and see how Jesus responded to heartache. Since our goal as Christians is to become more like Christ, it is essential for us to look and see how Jesus lived.
"So John was beheaded in the prison, and his head was brought on a tray and given to the girl, who took it to her mother. Later, John's disciples came for his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus what had happened.
As soon as Jesus heard the news, he left in a boat to a remote area to be alone. But the crowds heard where he was headed and followed on foot from many towns. Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick."
Matthew 14:10-14
Wow. Now that’s some news…
Jesus just heard that His cousin and friend John the Baptist was beheaded.
So what did Jesus do? He went to be alone with God. He didn’t turn to people to help Him feel better. He turned to God, knowing that God was the only one who could bring Him peace in this grief He was facing.
Then what did He do? He saw that the people came to Him from many towns and had compassion for them and continued to do what He came to do.
Love people.
Heal people.
Save people.
The next time life gets messy, and an unseen disappointment or heartache happens, I challenge you to turn to Jesus. He will give you everything you need. If you don’t know how to turn to Jesus or are wanting to spend time with Jesus but don’t know how or where to start, read this blog post!
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