Parallel Pain

My mom and I were sitting in the car today while riding around town. I got to drive my Dad's SUV, which always makes me happy, and my mom sat shotgun. I've been amazed through grieving my sister how often we sit and hurt together. Today we spoke few words and shared moments of tears and just silent hurt. What else is there to say? While we individually have our own unique losses and hurts to grieve, we are both hurting and grieving the same person. We have parallel pain.

Church services are filled with people experiencing parallel pain. People walking through divorce, financial pressure, addictions, wounds from others, and just plain hard knocks all sit by each other every week in church services. While their circumstances, addictions and hurts are not all the same, many of them are walking through the same experience.

Each week when I look out at each group of people in the service(s) I'm serving in, I pray in my heart for those hurting to feel loved and for those floundering around in their faith or in accepting God's gift of eternal life to be compelled to surrender completely to Him. I sometimes also pray for the people in the room to know each other. For someone hurting to meet someone hurting. For someone grieving to meet someone grieving. For someone alone to meet someone else who feels alone...on and on I could go. That's why I stare out at the crowd sometimes! Open-eye prayer. Yeah, it's legal.

There is a major shift in our world when someone understands us or a unique circumstance. Suddenly, we're not alone and someone "gets" what we're feeling or have felt. Parallel pain sometimes results in parallel healing. While we all heal at our own pace and in our own way, for those of us in Christ, we're healing. Every day closer to eternity is an opportunity to experience more healing than the day before because of the promise of eternity!

I hope you have someone to "parallel" you in your hurts and your healing. If you don't, I'm praying right now you meet him/her/them very soon. In the meantime, if and when you sit in a church service (and based on sheer attendance, your odds are even better at Southland) remember that someone in that room most likely has walked through or is walking through an experience not too different from yours. I'm hoping roads in the room cross long enough at just the right intersections for people to notice the others on roads going the same direction in hurting or in healing. Chances are good, you're not alone.