DEPTHS of experience; that’s what the abundant life is all about.

But we turn away from the deeper life when pain comes. We cannot have the heights if we are not prepared to go to the depths. This is life.

So I’ve learned, initially against my own will, that there is a kind of life experienced in the deep that is immensely valuable!

Even as we endure the pain of heartbreak, we can, in that depth, experience a depth that makes us bigger, better, more compassionate, and touchable.

The underlying truth of this, of course, is that the Presence of God provides the purpose of entering. So actually entering the abyss is the very way to access special revelation and the Presence of God.

An example… a poem, and then a comment about the poem, from my journal:

O wonderful bread,

A completely healthy lament,

It’s a funny kind of torment,

Goal, satisfaction! Let it reign

In any ancient choice of time,

It enjoys a grievance from the experience,

It is the presence of God that is used,

Oh how I love you, Divine!

Having played music that elicits serene and ethereal emotion almost immediately, looking through the visual records of the moment we lost our young son, there is the precious healing practice of inviting the revelation of Spirit. There is a hunger for his Presence. Wherever his Presence is, it seems I’m willing to go, but I shudder at the thought of his Presence leaving for whatever reason. And God said to me going into this heartbreak healing, “I will never ever leave you, I will never ever forsake you.” Walking through the Nathanael Marcus experience, here and with us physically, again, is a gift that I can immediately access whenever I want to remember it. What a wonderful sharing of healing. I praise God!

This is very significant, others who are sick like me should know about this healing that comes from intentionally entering what I call ‘healing’, heartbreak.

***

Hope transcends all experience of anguish in the knowledge that God goes with us as we walk toward healing when we enter pain.

However, such healing can only come when we have discredited all rights over ourselves, which is the obedience of a Christian to his Lord.

God knows heartbreak is terrifying, bitter, numbing, and irritating. However, when we go into heartbreak with our Lord, there is a healing that can be accessed.

God blesses every act of courage to deal with the truth of our pain. And his is the strength in the condition of our weakness that will carry us forward.

© 2015 SJ Wickham.