Tears are diamonds

Tears are diamonds

“Autch!” I quickly withdraw my hands as the hot stove leaves a mark on them. As cold water tries to cool down the burning, I wonder about how my fingers would look if my natural response to pain wouldn’t be to withdraw. Luckily my body reacts faster than my conscious mind does in those situations. I’ve learned my lesson, oven gloves are not just a nice accessory, but rather really necessary. Pain has taught me well.

Just as your body, your heart’s response to pain is withdrawal. When you are hurt by someone, your first reaction is to withdraw. Pain cries out for protection and restoration and it won’t stop crying until it’s satisfied. You can put it in a locked, soundproof room of your heart, but that won’t make Pain stop crying, you just won’t hear it anymore. It’s cry for protection will make you shut yourself off. Pain never wants to be repeated, no matter the cost. But what pain doesn’t make you realize is that when you respond out of hurt, the only result is more pain. By protecting yourself you miss out on the most important things you need for restoration.

To some degree, we all are afraid of pain. Some people already start crying when someone steps on their toe, while others only say “that’s unfortunate!” when a nail pierces their two fingers. But even you have such a high pain tolerance as the man in the last situation (it’s a true story), you will always try to prevent pain. Pain’s purpose is to become more careful so it can be prevented. Next time I’ll take lasagna out of the oven, I will first make sure I’m wearing my oven gloves! The more afraid you are for pain, the more careful you’re living in order to prevent it.

Pain has a very clear message and the difficult thing is that the message is true. You need to be protected and sometimes you need to be careful because the pain is an indication for real danger. But the message pain gives is not the full truth, it’s influenced by fear. Especially when pain is locked up in the soundproof room, it screams louder and louder in order to be heard, until the point that it’s message is taken into extremes. Unprocessed pain can destroy your heart once it breaks loose and the fear for more pain can wreck your life. Pain itself is not wrong, but the way we deal with it is the problem.

Pain is not bad, we’ve attached way more fear to it than necessary. We have become afraid to let people come close to us, because of the fear of being hurt (again). But only when you let people come close enough to hurt you, they are close enough to love you. I smile when a stranger says I’m beautiful, but after 10 minutes I already forgot about it. But if my best friend or my mentor points out an aspect of my identity which is admirable,  I feel truly loved. The love of the ones who are closer to you is more valuable than the love of the ones who are at a distance. That’s why you can only receive love to the extend you’ve allowed people to come close you. That’s also why you are always hurt the most by the ones you love the most. They know your weaknesses, most vulnerable parts,  insecurities and secrets. Just touching one of your wounds can be more hurtful than a stab of a knife at a healthy spot. Every time you share you heart, you’re taking a risk. You’re giving people an opportunity to hurt your inner core, but you’re also giving them an opportunity to get to know you better. To know you is to love you, so the more people know you, the more they love you.

God once told me: “You are fighting the arms that are meant to hold you.” As I started thinking about this, I saw what He meant. For years I’ve been trying to be as independent and self-sufficient as possible, until I found out this year that those were not virtues but hindrances for growth. I started to learn to express my needs and let others help me. In that process I felt incredibly vulnerable. It was scary to see how much closer people could come. Luckily I’m in a very safe environment, surrounded by people who want the best for me. But I wasn’t used to having people come so close, so I found myself withdrawing from those relationships or fighting their attempts to help me. I was so afraid of pain, that I tried to protect myself while I actually was withholding myself from the things I needed the most: love, support, understanding and protection.

Even with God this is true. We are afraid to let Him come too close, because His love opens up the doors of our heart, especially the locked ones with screaming pain behind them. But He will always give us the love and the strength to be able to process the pain. I’ve had some pretty tough weeks this month because of this very reason, but I can truly say it’s all worth it. Because of some emotional healing,  I now experience deeper levels of love for God, from God, from people and for people. I could have shut off and stopped the processes that we were working through, because it was too painful. But I learned to hold on the hands with holes who were healing the holes in my heart. I discovered that the most valuable treasures are often found in dark corners of fear and in deep rivers of tears. You can’t heal the wounds you don’t know you have and you can’t receive the things you don’t know you need. Discovering your wounds and needs can be extremely painful, but it’s the only way to healing and full wholeness.

So take the risk. Accept Daddy God’s love. Let people come close. Process the pain. Let them love you. Listen to your pain, but let Love’s message be the only one that remains. Let love come, even if the measure of love is bigger than the measure of what you think are worth. Go deep. Share your heart. Feel. Cry. Live.

 Because tears caught in the light of the Sun are always transformed into diamonds.