The most painful things. My confession of failure.

At the age of 4 I stood at the pinnacle of my stairs in the cinnamon apartments with my self-named ‘suzi gun’ while donning the latest underoos. I had not realized levels of pain beyond the head bonk. In an instant my footing slipped and my frail oversized body was sent tumbling down the stairs entangled with the suzi gun.

Gravity brought me to an inevitable stop and the screams alerted my mother. I didn’t know it then, but now, with children of my own, there is a distinct cry that says, “I’m really hurt, this is an emergency.”

When mama came to scoop me up she noticed my arm, once normally shaped as arms go, was now more likened to the curve of a dinner fork taking a sharp turn and straightening out at the end.

Rushed the ER.

I don’t remember much, but I can still see the contraption they brought in. My fingers and hand were to slip into the torture device as they proceeded to yank my bones back into place.

A terrible ordeal.

[My mother retells the story always reminding me that the doctors had overlooked giving me any meds for pain.]

That pain is a distant memory now, 40 years later. On occasion a cold day in winter reminds me that something happened, but the ache is far from the snapping, bending, yanking, and setting of bones.

This was the beginning of the great pain journey we call life.
Broken ankles. [Yes multiple]
Arm – take 2 – launching off a homemade skateboard ramp.
Crushed hand. Broken fingers.
Broken elbow. Broken hand.
Breaking is my hobby.

Breaking, however, is only one type of pain. Broken bones. Breaking up with a girl. Breaking a tooth on a microphone. They all hurt… a bit. They all found a path to mending back. Becoming mostly what they were before.

Then there is death. And death offers no return.
Physical death being the ultimate end in this life.
The ending of breath.
Ending of heartbeats.
Ending of future in this realm.
My vocation has put me beside many beds of death. It is always heavy. There’s always tears. Death.

There is another pain of death. Not just the breakup of teen years that left the pillow wet and walls punched. Total death of a relationship. Divorce. Friends once as close as brothers. Death of a friendship. A career. A calling.

For me, perhaps not for you, this type death has been the most painful.

I’ve lost friends to physical death. That hurts. You know what also hurts? The death of close relationship while you are both living. No path to reconcile things the way they were because actions have consequences.

Twice I have had close friends fall into a betrayal that sickened my soul. I’m still fighting for friendship, but actions have consequences and their actions murdered what was. My reactions then aimed the final shot. I am not unblamed in these relational homicides. Two to the body, one to the head.

These were the closest of friendships. Brotherhood would be the appropriate word.

I sit still now and process.
There is no way back for me.
I’m not enough like Jesus.
I want to be. I just can’t seem to find the way.

Some pain cuts so deep that the scar tissue disfigures and forms into a curled up knot of misplaced tissue. So it can be with emotional wounds.

How do we move on from that level of pain?

The kind of pain that doesn’t hurt for a day, a week, a month, or a year? The cut that haunts your thoughts when you pass by a memory. The betrayal that makes your stomach turn away from eating at the thought.

I am searching.

I am a forgiven man. Forgiven by a loving God who pursued, gave his own life, and forgave all the mire of my own. God has shown me what forgiveness can be, and my offenses to a perfect being are vastly greater that the murder scene of my friendships that are currently plaguing my soul.

How can it be that I am so loved and so very flawed.

As a young Christian I pretended a lot. I pretended I had it together. I said the right words that fit into Christian bubbles. Only as I age have a found the freedom in letting my pretense die.

I am furious. I don’t want to forgive certain things. I don’t truly trust that God is who he says he is, otherwise my life and responses would look very different.

This doesn’t mean I have given up. Quite the contrary. I am finally able to freely confess to God all the lies I am believing.

You see, as long as I am living there is still time. Time for resurrection. Time for restoration. There is time. Time for forgiveness.

Will I? I’m not sure. Do I have the ability? Not really. Can God work in and through me? Always.

The hallways of my life are still littered with dark rooms where I have not yet surrendered to the light of Christ. Perhaps I will end this chapter of life like the begging father, “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!”

Death be damned.