Crosswalk: If You Are Going Through Hell, Keep Going

BY JEN  VANSTEENBERGEN

Life happens, I'm sure everyone is aware of this, and because it's life, the crappy parts usually happen at the same time (or as my Nana would say, it all comes in threes). No one likes these parts of life even though we all know that in the long run it helps us grow as a person. We can argue the whole pain for glory concept as much as we want but it never makes the difficult times any less difficult. The worse part, we tend be oblivious to the fact that we are in the middle of a difficult time in life until we are... in the middle of it. There are usually signs that we are entering a rocky phase yet we never see these "signs" until we are looking back saying to ourselves... "seriously? I should have seen this coming" 

So, when life throws us an unruly curve ball what do we want to do? Stop right in the middle of it, stopping right when we figure out where we are and what we might go through next... how about just not go any further? We don't think that this will fix anything (well most of us don't) but ultimately we just want everything to go away. We tend to use the logic that if we are going through pain, stop doing the things that are causing us pain. We probably get this from the whole 'don't touch the hot stove' lesson that every one of us has learnt. If you keep your hand on the burning stove then your hand will continue to burn... so just remove your hand and the pain will stop. So, in the midst of life we somehow convince ourselves that by stopping life we will stop the pain. Picture this: 

You are standing at a cross walk waiting, happily knowing that the little man will tell us to make our way safely across the street. Once he appears you begin your journey, one foot in front of the other you walk boldly across... however, all of us know that by the time you get halfway across the street the stop hand begins to flash. Logic and experience would tell us that this is just warning us that soon you will not be able to continue to walk across the street anymore but to keep on walking until you get to the other side. But what if we just stopped right in the middle of the street once the hand appeared, sat down in the middle of the street with our legs crossed, arms folded and pouted at the fact that the hand is no longer flashing but is static.... 

Would this happen in real life? I'm hoping not but I don't necessarily put it past mankind (we've done some stupid things before). But by staying there in the middle of the road, not only are you not making it to the your destination but you are now in the middle of something much more dangerous, moving traffic. 

So let's put this all into perspective. 
Crossing the street = Going through life
The little man = When life is going smoothly
The Flashing Hand = When life gets hard
The Static Hand = When life gets downright miserable
Traffic.... well I'm sure you can use your imaginations

Too many times we stop in the middle of a tough time because it gets too hard but if you really think it through stopping does nothing but make things worse. It will draw the situation out much longer then it has to be. So why do we do this? Why do we prolong our own pain? Because the inevitable next step is the healing process... and healing always hurts more then the injury in the first place.

This may sound contradictory, I mean healing is supposed to lead you to the "not hurting anymore part"... however it ends up being the most painful part... Well, let's look at it this way, when you break your arm, the initial break is painful yes... but what comes to follow, is so much worse. Following the Doctors orders, you have to place your arm in a cast, that you cannot get it wet so there goes swimming, or worse yet... relaxing showers. If you hit it on something, the vibration moves throughout your whole arm, reminding you of the initial pain you felt. You will have a hard time dressing yourself and coordinating a cast with any outfit is close to a nightmare. For those of us who are independent all of the sudden need a helping hand every time you need to reach something. Above all, this isn't a one week situation... this is a multi-week sometimes MONTHS situation.

So far this just makes me want to never leave the house... nay, my couch, so that I shall never break a bone again. But we all know that that is not reality. I need to work, I need a social life and frankly if breaking a bone every now and then means I get to live life... it's not a bad trade off. 

Bones aren't the only thing that needs to heal, what about our hearts? Have you ever had your heart broken before? Most of us have. What about having your spirit broken? You were on a roll in life and then one day, BAM! Your life as you knew it was swept out from under your feet. You feel deflated and sometimes abandoned. But it's during this healing time that God has to put us in a cast, he has to limit our abilities in order for us to heal properly! The key word is properly here, We can heal without God but we won't heal fully. And we will break a lot easier the next time we fall, run into a wall, or life finds a dead end. But like any doctor patient relationship, you have to agree to have the cast put on in the first place. You have to resist taking it off before you're fully healed. God isn't going to make you sit and listen to him, he doesn't want to strap you down while you swallow the bitter trust that you are heading down the road for further destruction if you don't sit and be still! 

You have to want to get better... 
You have to want to let him heal you... 
You have to realize that not all healing comes in a miracle prayer