Awhile back, out of the blue, a video surfaced on Facebook that tore at my heart and triggered some painful memories for me. And I was struck with the question, “Why, after so much healing has taken place, both inside of me and in relationships, why does the pain still feel so real? Why does it even exist? Why does the struggle to “not go there” and rehash everything become so intense?

After several days I began to wonder if there will always be a place of sorrow in my heart. Though God has used the pain for good (Romans 8:28), there were decades spent longing for a restored relationship. The losses felt: tears and yearnings of a little girl, confusion and pining of a teenager, feeling insignificant as a woman, were real and sharp.

I began to consider other people in my life who have gone through agonizing losses. Death or divorce stealing a spouse, destroying the dreams of a shared lifetime of love and companionship. Or the horrendous tearing away of the life of a child or parent. For those precious ones, after years of healing, a sparked memory surfaces; followed by the stark realization that an empty place in their life still exists.   There remains a place of sorrow in their heart.

We have all experienced great healing. God has shown Himself in marvelous, faithful, bind-up-the-wound kinds of ways. The sharpness and depth of the sorrow has diminished over time. But there is a forever lingering sorrow.

Do these places of sorrow mean we haven’t totally given this wound to God? That we’re hanging on to a piece of our sadness, refusing to give it over to His healing?

Some losses leave holes in our lives that can never be filled or replaced by anyone, outside of God Himself. Added to that, we experience an aching in our soul because something is amiss.

Because we live in a fallen world where death temporarily separates us, we experience great loss. A sorrow exists because death was not part of God’s original plan for mankind.

Because we are fallen people who make selfish, ungodly choices, we will experience harsh hurt and harm. There’s a sorrowing over sin that corrupts and tears apart. A sorrow exists because this is not how relationships were originally designed. This is not what God intended. This is not how we were created to love and be loved.

The place of sorrow in our hearts becomes an inner groaning; a longing for Him to come and make all things right again.  A longing for that final reign when He will wipe away every tear (Revelation 7:17), when all of our sorrows will be healed completely (Revelation 21:4), and all of our longings will be fulfilled in His presence (Jeremiah 31:13).

We do not want our places of sorrow to be pits where we dwell, stoking fires of bitterness and self-pity, allowing the sorrow to consume us. They should not continue to be open seeping wounds.

Instead, they become a banner that declares to those around us, “See? See this scar? That was once a gaping wound. But God has brought healing. God has given me the strength and perseverance to go on in spite of this experience. My life is of great value and purpose to Him in spite of this sorrow I carry.” It proclaims His faithfulness. His healing. His love. His power in my life.

Whether, through His marvelous grace, we find complete healing for our sorrow in this life, or whether we will hold that quiet place of sorrow all our days, His children are promised this:

“That we will enter Zion with singing;
Everlasting joy will crown our heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake us
And sorrow and sighing will flee away.”
Isaiah 35:10

Photo by Edu Grande on Unsplash