25. January 2011 by BruceSmith.

PAIN WRECK

Life Thought:  In the aftermath of a train wreck, in-depth analysis, clean up, engine repairs, adjustment of conductor practices, track re-alignment, and new railway operations are stridently enforced for the future protection & vitality of passengers, pedestrians, workers, and the public at large.  In the pain wreck of our lives, should it be any different?  Unless we re-evaluate and adjust all the daily contingencies, we meet one crash after another.  The scriptures are our tracks for safety and adventure.  It is between the guide-rails of God’s statutes that we find not only a more desirable destination, but a more fulfilling journey along the way.  

I remember, as a child, for many years, being intrigued by trains.  Like lots of young boys, the whole idea of these masses of steel and steam, and power and speed, just really got my juices flowing.  The conductor caps, the long journeys across the vast expanses of the world, the exciting duels fought out on the tops of moving trains in the movies, the shootouts in the westerns of the day…all really cool stuff.   For a period of time when I was younger my mom would buy me train sets, some of which were really neat.  I remember one year when I received an amazing set of steel tracks and a giant strong, fast, slivery smooth train set, led by a massive engine in front.  The thing even blew real steam, and whistled!  My mind would take me places, on this train, that enlarged my view of what life should be and where it should take me.  One thing I came to know during this time, this life was built for something grand, something strong, something heroic, something beyond the norm.  I think I’ve lived with that idea in view ever since.

That idea, that our lives are built for a bigger story, grips everyone, at least for a while.  For some the idea lasts a lifetime.  For most, the idea, the hunger, the desire for something more gets derailed, lost, crashed upon the pain of life.  Many, in our world, have the adventure turn really ugly early on in life.  The physical, mental, sexual abuse statistics and research demonstrate just how nasty and life-altering the train wrecks of our lives can be.  Like a toxic spill, these wrecks leave residue for years to come.  For others the fast-moving, scenic adventure turns ugly in the midst of a romance turned tragic.  Amidst the mangled wreckage of betrayal, violence, sudden illness and loss, selfishness, addiction, death, or the fading of desire, lives come off the tracks, and families and hearts break apart like box cars unhinged from each other, colliding into one another with a gruesome force. Still, others, experience the pain wreck of life when a deeply planted dream dies.  Professional ambitions are squashed, athletic quests are cut short, a desire for a loved one does not pan out.  An educational dream is derailed by a pregnancy or financial realities or the realities of caring for a family.  These things can hover over our heads like a helicopter news crew filming the unfolding carnage of a major spill.

I began to realize, early on, how the adventure could turn dangerous.  Fundamentally, I understood, without even realizing it, that I had to choose to take responsibility for my journey if adventure was to be had.  Like many, like you maybe, life gave me an early awakening to the reality of loss and pain.  From the age of two, I grew up without a father, and then as a pre-teen, with a new family budding, I watched as my step-father, only twenty-seven years old, and the picture of athletic health, suffered and died with cancer.  I had not, up till that point, and have not since, had a father figure in my household.  That’s not the kind of journey we choose, but its part of what unfolds on the tracks of life.  How we respond, I found out, by the grace of God, determines the quality of the ride from that point on.

When these events, these detours from our preferred journey unfold, how we manage our heart largely dictates the working out of the rest of our lives.  Like another of the statistics, I could have taken the route of the child from a “broken and fatherless home”.  The research is riddled with the reality of certain things characterizing the lives of those who do grow up fatherless and those who grow up in a severed family.  Larger reported use of drugs and alcohol, less emotional stability, abuse, lack of focus, pathological patterns of compulsion, anger, workaholism, depression, a pattern of aggression, …on and on, the reports are catalogues of life wreckage.  Thankfully, by the grace of God, and because of a healthy measure of love from family and close friends along the way, and because God brought me to Himself early in life, I was spared this kind of pain wreckage.

That is not to say I’ve ignored or not been impacted by the reality of that loss, and its not to say that pieces to my puzzle could not have fit much better if I had the gift of a vitally functioning and biblically thriving father in my life.  Is that not true for us all?  Surely that would have made a difference in ways I don’t even understand.  This reality, in fact, was recently brought to my attention when, upon the “anniversary” of my grandmother’s death, I went to visit her gravesite, and then decided to visit the graves of each of my grandparents, on both sides (all in same small town and at two different cemeteries) of my family tree.  After easily finding the sites for all four grandparents, I could not even find the site of my now deceased father’s grave (despite having been to the funeral and actually preaching the funeral message) which is somewhere in the same cemetery as his parents.  For only the second time in my life (the first being his funeral) that I can remember, I cried “over” the realities that encompass my father’s own pain wreck and the aftermath it left for so long and still leaves for so many.  Again, by God’s grace, I have the power and rest to walk in the joy and peace of understanding and purpose, and so, my life is not marked by a daily awareness of this reality.  Life does bring us undesirable twists.  Pain is there for each of us, waiting to flood our veins and impact every moment of our lives if we allow it.  

But it does not have to be this way.  How we view the pain of our lives, how we process it, and how we allow God to do His thing, is what will make us or break us.  We make the choice to allow the shocking current of past pain to run through our everyday reality like an electric charge, always there, always just under the surface, ready to jolt us or anyone that would get too close at any moment.  All of us are birthed into this adventure, all of us are given the opportunity to experience a bigger adventure.  And all of us witness wrecks along the way.  The key is found in our assessment, reaction, and submission to God’s work in the midst of it all.  He is never derailed.  Let me say that again.  God is never derailed.  His intentions for you are sure.  He desires that you continue on the track, charging full-speed ahead, whistle blowing, scenery taken in, full of joy for the journey, and expectation in your heart from what’s around the next bend.

If your are to walk in that fulness, you must begin the cleanup, internally, spiritually, emotionally, and relationally.  The longer you wait, the more difficult the laying of new tracks becomes.  

Like a wreck site left unattended to for years, your heart, unkept, unhealed, becomes a darkened, dry, weary, and avoidable landscape.  You will dread it all the more, and people will find routes that take them elsewhere in order to avoid the dangers there.  As your heart darkens, you grow in your compulsion to hide it from yourself and others, you reinforce its death by false self-talk, a false-persona, and you commit in greater scope to an all out self-protection, refusing to allow God or anyone else to get in there and help you heal.  This kind of pain wreck, like nuclear fall-out or a seeping chemical spill, can affect you for a lifetime.  

The time to clean up and get back on the tracks is now.  Don’t allow the pain, no matter how deep, to continue to impact your present.  By doing so, your future is certain.  You will die, right there, smothering, trapped, lying in the wreckage.  Too often, those characterized by this kind of life, even as they have chosen to stay there, blame all the onlookers for there continuing choice.  Pointing, screaming, yelling from beneath the rubble, they tell all the onlookers its their fault things are as they are.  Even the rescue workers, those trained to care, those who are willing to get dirty and help rebuild, are, amidst the confusion and clutter and distrust of the past, told to stay way.  Like a wounded animal, too consumed with the pain, they are unwilling to allow first aid to be applied and healing to begin.  God always wants to heal your pain.  He always sends others to help.  He’s been doing it from the beginning.  We must trust His heart for us and allow His hand to touch those wounds that are still bleeding even after so many years.  He will never allow us to just move on.  He is committed to moving in us, giving us insight, and restoring what is broken and hidden.  He will not allow us to hide it away as if its just a part of us we can move, cover, disguise at will with no effects upon us or others.  

…to be continued …  moving from wreckage and pain to healing and adventure

Bruce Smith

optimuslife.org

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

25. January 2011 by BruceSmith.

PAIN WRECK

Life Thought:  In the aftermath of a train wreck, in-depth analysis, clean up, engine repairs, adjustment of conductor practices, track re-alignment, and new railway operations are stridently enforced for the future protection & vitality of passengers, pedestrians, workers, and the public at large.  In the pain wreck of our lives, should it be any different?  Unless we re-evaluate and adjust all the daily contingencies, we meet one crash after another.  The scriptures are our tracks for safety and adventure.  It is between the guide-rails of God’s statutes that we find not only a more desirable destination, but a more fulfilling journey along the way.  

I remember, as a child, for many years, being intrigued by trains.  Like lots of young boys, the whole idea of these masses of steel and steam, and power and speed, just really got my juices flowing.  The conductor caps, the long journeys across the vast expanses of the world, the exciting duels fought out on the tops of moving trains in the movies, the shootouts in the westerns of the day…all really cool stuff.   For a period of time when I was younger my mom would buy me train sets, some of which were really neat.  I remember one year when I received an amazing set of steel tracks and a giant strong, fast, slivery smooth train set, led by a massive engine in front.  The thing even blew real steam, and whistled!  My mind would take me places, on this train, that enlarged my view of what life should be and where it should take me.  One thing I came to know during this time, this life was built for something grand, something strong, something heroic, something beyond the norm.  I think I’ve lived with that idea in view ever since.

That idea, that our lives are built for a bigger story, grips everyone, at least for a while.  For some the idea lasts a lifetime.  For most, the idea, the hunger, the desire for something more gets derailed, lost, crashed upon the pain of life.  Many, in our world, have the adventure turn really ugly early on in life.  The physical, mental, sexual abuse statistics and research demonstrate just how nasty and life-altering the train wrecks of our lives can be.  Like a toxic spill, these wrecks leave residue for years to come.  For others the fast-moving, scenic adventure turns ugly in the midst of a romance turned tragic.  Amidst the mangled wreckage of betrayal, violence, sudden illness and loss, selfishness, addiction, death, or the fading of desire, lives come off the tracks, and families and hearts break apart like box cars unhinged from each other, colliding into one another with a gruesome force. Still, others, experience the pain wreck of life when a deeply planted dream dies.  Professional ambitions are squashed, athletic quests are cut short, a desire for a loved one does not pan out.  An educational dream is derailed by a pregnancy or financial realities or the realities of caring for a family.  These things can hover over our heads like a helicopter news crew filming the unfolding carnage of a major spill.

I began to realize, early on, how the adventure could turn dangerous.  Fundamentally, I understood, without even realizing it, that I had to choose to take responsibility for my journey if adventure was to be had.  Like many, like you maybe, life gave me an early awakening to the reality of loss and pain.  From the age of two, I grew up without a father, and then as a pre-teen, with a new family budding, I watched as my step-father, only twenty-seven years old, and the picture of athletic health, suffered and died with cancer.  I had not, up till that point, and have not since, had a father figure in my household.  That’s not the kind of journey we choose, but its part of what unfolds on the tracks of life.  How we respond, I found out, by the grace of God, determines the quality of the ride from that point on.

When these events, these detours from our preferred journey unfold, how we manage our heart largely dictates the working out of the rest of our lives.  Like another of the statistics, I could have taken the route of the child from a “broken and fatherless home”.  The research is riddled with the reality of certain things characterizing the lives of those who do grow up fatherless and those who grow up in a severed family.  Larger reported use of drugs and alcohol, less emotional stability, abuse, lack of focus, pathological patterns of compulsion, anger, workaholism, depression, a pattern of aggression, …on and on, the reports are catalogues of life wreckage.  Thankfully, by the grace of God, and because of a healthy measure of love from family and close friends along the way, and because God brought me to Himself early in life, I was spared this kind of pain wreckage.

That is not to say I’ve ignored or not been impacted by the reality of that loss, and its not to say that pieces to my puzzle could not have fit much better if I had the gift of a vitally functioning and biblically thriving father in my life.  Is that not true for us all?  Surely that would have made a difference in ways I don’t even understand.  This reality, in fact, was recently brought to my attention when, upon the “anniversary” of my grandmother’s death, I went to visit her gravesite, and then decided to visit the graves of each of my grandparents, on both sides (all in same small town and at two different cemeteries) of my family tree.  After easily finding the sites for all four grandparents, I could not even find the site of my now deceased father’s grave (despite having been to the funeral and actually preaching the funeral message) which is somewhere in the same cemetery as his parents.  For only the second time in my life (the first being his funeral) that I can remember, I cried “over” the realities that encompass my father’s own pain wreck and the aftermath it left for so long and still leaves for so many.  Again, by God’s grace, I have the power and rest to walk in the joy and peace of understanding and purpose, and so, my life is not marked by a daily awareness of this reality.  Life does bring us undesirable twists.  Pain is there for each of us, waiting to flood our veins and impact every moment of our lives if we allow it.  

But it does not have to be this way.  How we view the pain of our lives, how we process it, and how we allow God to do His thing, is what will make us or break us.  We make the choice to allow the shocking current of past pain to run through our everyday reality like an electric charge, always there, always just under the surface, ready to jolt us or anyone that would get too close at any moment.  All of us are birthed into this adventure, all of us are given the opportunity to experience a bigger adventure.  And all of us witness wrecks along the way.  The key is found in our assessment, reaction, and submission to God’s work in the midst of it all.  He is never derailed.  Let me say that again.  God is never derailed.  His intentions for you are sure.  He desires that you continue on the track, charging full-speed ahead, whistle blowing, scenery taken in, full of joy for the journey, and expectation in your heart from what’s around the next bend.

If your are to walk in that fulness, you must begin the cleanup, internally, spiritually, emotionally, and relationally.  The longer you wait, the more difficult the laying of new tracks becomes.  

Like a wreck site left unattended to for years, your heart, unkept, unhealed, becomes a darkened, dry, weary, and avoidable landscape.  You will dread it all the more, and people will find routes that take them elsewhere in order to avoid the dangers there.  As your heart darkens, you grow in your compulsion to hide it from yourself and others, you reinforce its death by false self-talk, a false-persona, and you commit in greater scope to an all out self-protection, refusing to allow God or anyone else to get in there and help you heal.  This kind of pain wreck, like nuclear fall-out or a seeping chemical spill, can affect you for a lifetime.  

The time to clean up and get back on the tracks is now.  Don’t allow the pain, no matter how deep, to continue to impact your present.  By doing so, your future is certain.  You will die, right there, smothering, trapped, lying in the wreckage.  Too often, those characterized by this kind of life, even as they have chosen to stay there, blame all the onlookers for there continuing choice.  Pointing, screaming, yelling from beneath the rubble, they tell all the onlookers its their fault things are as they are.  Even the rescue workers, those trained to care, those who are willing to get dirty and help rebuild, are, amidst the confusion and clutter and distrust of the past, told to stay way.  Like a wounded animal, too consumed with the pain, they are unwilling to allow first aid to be applied and healing to begin.  God always wants to heal your pain.  He always sends others to help.  He’s been doing it from the beginning.  We must trust His heart for us and allow His hand to touch those wounds that are still bleeding even after so many years.  He will never allow us to just move on.  He is committed to moving in us, giving us insight, and restoring what is broken and hidden.  He will not allow us to hide it away as if its just a part of us we can move, cover, disguise at will will not effects upon us or others.  

…to be continued …  moving from wreckage and pain to healing and adventure

Bruce Smith

optimuslife.org

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »