Talk with me about your hurts.  Think of your life as a novel you’ve been writing through all your choices and responses.  You’ve been weaving all the events of your life together to shape it into a narrative which gives your life meaning.  Some chapters of this personal novel may hold painful memories, old hurts that seep into your consciousness yet today.  Tell me about these, too.  These wounds reopened can give me an opportunity to heal you and free you from the grip of these long-buried pains.

– Ben Johnson, I Stand at the Door, CTS Press, 1986, 5.

“Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest.  Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves.  ³My yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is light.” 

Matthew 11:28-30

Christ came to bear our pain.  Unburden some of yours with him today.  Share your deep hurts. Be honest about your wounds. Let yourself be fully seen – even those parts of your life you prefer to hide.  See the difference it makes to not carry them alone.  The story of Jesus’ birth is the story of God’s love come into the world – the story of his death shows us both the incredible depths of that love and its incredible power.  Christ’s love for you can bear any and all pain you have experienced.  Christ’s love for you will not leave you mired in that pain, but will raise you up and set you free.  One of the incredible blessings of being a pastor is watching the miracle of God’s love at work in so many lives.  As you open the door to your own pain, see what that love at work in you can mean for your own.

Lord Jesus,
Help me to entrust to my pain to you.
Help me to open to door to those places within that I have buried deep,
but continue to weigh on me.  
Give me the courage to trust your love –
its depths,
its power,
its presence within me.
Lord, set me free from what binds.
Set me free, so that I might truly live,
and share of this life you give with others.
Amen