Reality-Changing News

Most of us have received news that we knew would change our life forever. But that shared experience doesn't tend to help in the moment. 

When someone you love delivers sad news from the past, one the first—and most natural—reactions is shock. You don't decide to succumb to it. It just happens and you need time to get your wits about you. It can be unequivocally odd trying to adjust to the paradigm shift of being aware that something you didn't know previously has been a part of your reality long before you learned it real. She's not your daughter/You're adopted/I've never loved you.

Old truths for somebody. New hurts for you.

As potent as those jolts can be, they're nowhere near as great as the grace of Jesus Christ.

If Jesus is indeed real, and is who he says he is, then the potency of the hurts we suffer is both non-existent and undiminished. He bore the pain of all things when he deserved to suffer none, for the benefit of all, and none of them catch him off guard. If we allow this to be a comfort to us, it can be. But don't misunderstand, emotional wounds don't vanish into thin air. We bear in ourselves the marks of those wounds, new and old alike, 'til death.

The difference is that although the world is full of these types of hurts—some overt, some covert, seemingly waiting to pounce—Jesus wants to heal us from them and lead us to a day when old hurts are done away completely by and love that's older still.

Until that time, if we remember that the oldest truth is that of love—from Jesus—our paradigm can shift in a way that it will never really be rocked again, and our wounds can heal immediately, yet not completely. Until they fully do, in the midst of pain can be strength, and by us choosing to help bear one another's burdens, we can—like Christ —be people who leverage our strengths for the benefit of others, regardless of the status of the news of the day.