Venturing from life in the singular to life in the plural requires risks of being hurt again. Busy mothers and lonely mothers and sad mothers and afraid mothers, please hear this: others share your battles. Their stories are similar. They know of waiting and being afraid. They know of bad news and no news at all. They know of wishing and hoping and praying and doubting. Maybe they hide their pain as well as you do. Maybe it comes out in other ways. Maybe the last person you would ever believe struggles is the very one who shares your inner hurt.
Pause for a conversation with a child, a spouse, a neighbor, a pastor. Pause for a chat with your own thoughts. Pause for a prayer. Pause to enter a discussion about real life issues with real people who care for you.
Rick Warren wrote it this way:
“Life is meant to be shared.”
“Authentic fellowship is not superficial, surface-level chit-chat. It is genuine, heart-to-heart, sometimes gut-level sharing. It happens when people get honest about who they are and what is happening in their lives. They share their hurts, reveal their feelings, confess their failures, disclose their weaknesses, and ask for help and prayer.”
“Authenticity is the exact opposite of what you find in some churches. Instead of an atmosphere of honesty and humility, there is pretending, role playing, politicking, and superficial politeness but shallow conversation. People wear masks, keep their guard up, and act as if everything is rosy in their lives. These attitudes are the death of real fellowship.”
“The best use of life is love. The best expression of love is time. The best time to love is now.” [1]
I love those thoughts. I also love the beauty and wonder of conversations—appropriate, Christ-like, healthy conversations. Talks that do not include condemnation. Discussions that do not allow hate in words or tone or expressions.
Sometimes, though, it isn’t easy to work on our inner pain and be healed. Our next chapter will help us continue that journey of pausing to be healed, pausing to realize God cares for our child, pausing to believe again that God is near to us and giving us His wisdom, pausing to be real, pausing to be made new.
——————————————————————————————————————————
[1] Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002) 138, 139–140, 128.
