Our reactions to grievous wrongs are muddy, not tidy.

Hot tears streamed down my face for three connecting flights as I traveled from Montana to Florida last week to serve at a women’s retreat.

I didn’t make any sounds. No sobs. No words. But I must admit, I did feel badly for the elite flyers / business travelers seated around me. They were polite and didn’t acknowledge my soaking neck or my occasional brushes to my cheek with a tissue. But I knew full well that my actions and my emotional state were far beyond the bell curve of the normal million-miler frequent flyer pattern of Bose earphones, laptops, no eye contact, no chatting, and seriously! No crying!

Oh well. There was nothing to be done. I am in deep, exhausting, near-constant emotional pain these days and that’s just the way life sometimes goes. Sometimes, we cry. It’s not fun. It’s not pleasant. But Jesus wept. So it must be OK.

Many things have helped me during this time—real-life contact from real-life friends; prayer; a patient husband who gives me space and time to be confused and to grieve; wise counsel; the advocacy of an excellent attorney; being fed the Word and the Lord’s Supper. And also? Reviewing one of my all-time favorite David Powlison articles: I’ll Never Get Over It: Help for the Aggrieved.

So much truth! So much hope. Because so much Christ.

I’ll try to tempt you with these excerpts to click through and read the entire article and also consider subscribing to the CCEF Journal of Biblical Counseling (a true treasure!) and becoming a supporter of CCEF (like our family is honored to be!). And as I do, I will once again thank Dr Powlison and the entire CCEF team for the ministry of wisdom, grace, and love.

Through many tears,
Tara B.

Excerpts from David Powlison’s Article
I’ll Never Get Over It: Help for the Aggrieved

– How can you help people come to terms with things that are long and hard and don’t go away? How can you yourself come to terms with such afflictions?

– You won’t get over it, but you do not need to be forever defined by what happened.  Hear me rightly. I don’t mean that the poison and darkness of the experience will always haunt you … You won’t forget what happened, but there is a way out of the raptor’s claws.

– Deep hurt so easily gets infected—by mistrust, or fear, or rage, or callousness, or avoidance, or addiction, or … Hurt even gets infected by just trying to keep yourself busy and distracted. It turns inward. It turns self-destructive. But hurt and loss can become transmuted into a deeper good—still fierce, still sorrowing, but now clean. Not only clean, but hopeful. Not only hopeful, but fruitful. Not only fruitful, but wise. Not only wise, but even loving.

– You won’t forget. But you do not need to endlessly revisit what happened. You do not need to be imprisoned in the complexities and dead ends of your instinctive reactions.

– Our reactions to grievous wrongs are muddy, not tidy. Reactions rarely appear like primary colors, sharply separated from each other. They come in hues, shades, mixtures, and combinations. Sometimes you might get a “pure” color—for a moment. But most often, you will live out some mishmash of “all of the above.” It is extremely significant that the Bible, and Jesus, and the mercies of God directly engage all of the above. The lovingkindnesses of God are exactly keyed to what is grievously wrong.

– Does anyone who was raped, molested, beaten, mocked, or bereaved ever just get over it? Never. You do get over the misery of a bad head cold, or flunking a pop quiz in geometry, or a teenage infatuation with a movie star. (At least you ought to get over these things!) But you don’t get over something important. Your sufferings count. The goal is to find a way to go through it that comes out in a good place.

– The same dynamics that operate in petty bickering operate when vile evils are present. Because Msimangu knew the inworking power of God’s mercy, he could be frank with Kumalo’s anger and fear. Will you who are wronged, go wrong? Will you find yourself turned to hating, or will you find the strong mercy that turns you to loving?

–  In the midst of irremediable suffering, when tempted to fruitless remembering, in the midst of his powerlessness to make better all that is so wrong, a man asks God for mercies. On his mountain, Kumalo seizes hold of the one hope deeper than the deepest wreckage of hopes. He brings his cares to the One who cares for him. He lives out the rhythms of Christian faith: self-knowing before God, frank confession, honest gratitude, pointed intercession… going forth to live in the way of obedience.

– This is a life and death matter. When something is so wrong that you will never get over it, your reaction will either make you wise or will poison you. Great suffering puts a fork in the road. You will choose. You will of necessity choose. It is no accident that kyrie eleison—“Lord, have mercy”—is the essential prayer of the man or woman who faces facts honestly. It is no accident that “Blessed are the poor in spirit” is the first and foundational beatitude (Matt 5:3). A deep inner sense of need for help from outside yourself is the essential step of sanity. It is this faith—“I am poor and needy. Help me.”—that Jesus commends so often.

– I’ll leave you with a few words from … Psalm 23: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” When it says “house,” don’t take that to mean a building. It means the place where God is at home, where he is leading you. It means his family that gathers around him. It means a place where you are safe forever, a community where you belong.

[A re-post from 2015]