on broken hearts in a cold hearted world

Emotional stability is held as a virtue by some. I think those who hold tightly to a feel-no-pain, do-no-wrong way of life will be ambushed at some point in their lives with a sudden inability to cope with a circumstance or a new emotion.

The Christian community as a whole has put a black mark upon being emo or feeling and responding to emotional pain. But, hurt is real. Unfortunately for the thousands who die every year of suicide or injure themselves to feel better, emotional pain can't be wished away or brushed aside.

The point of this post is not to denigrate Christian joy. I do believe that joy, contentment, trust in God and happiness are vital parts of life. But they are not mutually exclusive with deep-seated emotional anguish, and I think too many people ignore that fact.

The real point of this post was just to share something I have written on my desk right now in big, black marker. I included the previous in order to provide some context for the text I'd like to share. I said more than I intended, so I will now move on to the real bulk of this post:

Emotion is the perception and interpretation of circumstance, so emotion cannot be exaggerated or over-felt by the feeler; it can only be more keenly perceived and more deeply and personally understood. To feel the sharp pain of loneliness or confusion is not to be without hope, but to embrace the potential of a better circumstance and for that reason hope all the more strongly.

And that's why it pierces my spirit to watch so many teens bleed and die every year of their own will, simply because too few people are willing to help them find hope in better circumstance but are all-too-ready to downplay their problems and label them as emo.



You're not alone. If you're dealing with emotional pain and are looking for resources or want to learn more about the ministry behind these thoughts, visit To Write Love on Her Arms at www.twloha.com.

[chocolate][strawberry][vanilla]

This is a season of decision.

One too many (or too few) college acceptance letters, a schedule so packed something needs to be eliminated, or just deciding where to spend the limited lunch money in your wallet. It's intimidating, and honestly, more crippling than most of us will admit to the people around us.

I'd like to venture a guess at the reason these decisions seem so daunting. Do I dare suggest that this is our human condition pronouncing itself in our inability to speak a language with more conjugations than our own?

You know that feeling of wrapping your brain around something? Almost literally feeling your mind kick off at a starting point and then come full circle and embrace an idea? I always got that feeling when I would visit somewhere historical. When you see the desk that [insert famous person] wrote [insert famous writing] at. At first, you sort of skim over the significance. But then, if you dig a little deeper and wrap your mind around the more concrete aspect of the desk before you, there's a feeling. This is the desk. There was a point in time when this desk was occupied by someone greater than me. There is more to this desk than the present.

That realization, that there is more than now, is the feeling I'm thinking of. When you are able to open your mind to the concept of an existence outside of you, outside of your time, outside of your limits. I cannot go back to when that desk was used. That's my human limitation. I can only shallowly ponder the concept.

There's another (among many, of course) human limitation, and it's the one I really wanted to write about. We all have one life. During that life, we get one try at things. For us there's always a path of reality and a path of retrospective hypotheticality.

That's why decisions, particularly the life changing ones, are so intimidating. Because every time I'm faced with option A or option B, I have to choose. Life doesn't allow me to see a preview of both, or go back and change my decision. Our brains are limited then, to understanding one option as the right, or the actual or the realized option. The others are just things we could have done, things we missed out on, things we avoided by God's grace.

Guess what.

God is bigger than that.

We claim we believe in a limitless, all-powerful God, yet we limit him so often to having "one plan". This is where the artsy and yummy sounding post title comes in.

God gives us lots of decisions. We obsess over picking the right, actual, realizable option. For us in our finite state, we have to. For God, any option can be the right option. He's all powerful after all. He gives us choices:

Chocolate.

Strawberry.

Vanilla.

We will spend countless hours, lose weeks of sleep, hinge our very happiness upon choosing the right flavor. But the thing about ice cream is, it's all pretty darn good. God gives us opportunities for a reason, and since he's big, he can use whatever we choose to whatever purpose he wants.

So dig in. Strawberry isn't "wrong". It's just an option. Vanilla won't kill you, but you might wish you had picked chocolate. Chocolate will make you happy, but it'd be better with peanuts. The worst thing you could do would be to avoid picking because you might miss out on two of the three. Then you end up missing all three.

The point is to pick. With an open heart, and with faith that God knows all and controls all. He provides opportunities, exits and wisdom. What he won't provide is an opportunity he can't control, or one that can't somehow be used for his glory.