my pain

I sit here, surrounded, smothered, and suppressed by loneliness, by pain, by hurt, by discontentment. The tears fill my eyes, and yet if people come near they disappear as quickly as they appeared. My heart is heavy. My mind too tired to think. My emotions zapped. I am an outward bouncing bubbly human with a bright smile, but on the inside day after day I hurt. I hurt because I want what I cannot have, I hurt because I am sad that I want, and I hurt because I want. The long days of being by myself, of being single, of it being just me… these are days I want to end. No longer do I want to see “single” as my identity. It hurts too much to be reminded of rejection, of disregard, of not being appreciated. I long for encouragement to keep a quiet heart and how I deeply desire to know that in the end this pain and sadness will pay off. But will it?

Desperately I fill each day with anything and everything that could possibly take my mind off of that which I want but don’t have. But it avails to nothing. That nagging and probing feeling of being alone still pervades. The sadness continues without reprieve. I look up from my sad thoughts and smile at a passerby, I laugh at my friends’ comments, I nod at instructions given to me. Everything is ok and nothing fazes me. My marvelous acting career continues hour after hour. Slowly, the hours and days drag on, and yet never do I fully relax and contemplate. Because I can’t. Somehow I can’t seem to let others see the hurt. Maybe I am afraid of continued rejection, maybe I am afraid they won’t think as I highly of me anymore. Maybe I am just afraid to admit I can’t handle things and I don’t have it all together. Maybe I am just afraid to admit that I need love, I need encouragement, I need to be told “good job”. Sure I get things like “you are awesome” or “amazing”. But I want to know that’s real and I want to know that I matter. I don’t always act and pretend, in fact most of the time I am genuinely joyful. But it is these moments of pain that seem to drive away all memories of that joy because more than anything I want to know that someone cherishes me and that I matter the world to somebody.

My mind goes to Jesus. I am supposed to trust Him with my life and future and emotions and love. He has promised to keep me going and give me grace. I urgently want to know that these works of Jesus are evident in my life. I hate acting and pretending constantly, but is that what Jesus wants? I am trying to deal with all my sadness on my own when He promised He can take care of it. He is the one that gives me joy, but can I break down and fall apart? I fear I must because I can’t do this much longer. I have to run to Jesus, He is the only one that can love and take away my craving to be loved and He fills it with His own beautiful and unconditional love. This is something I need to rest in always. And yet for these few moments I struggle outwardly. A battle is being fought and how I so want to win for my Jesus. I need His help and only through that and a pure repentant heart can I win. And when I get to heaven, I will hear those perfectly exhilarating words “Well done good and faithful servant.” How can anything compare to that? Those words will my reward and it is for that lovely speaker that I must live every breathing moment of my life.