Pain idols, repost

Heartbreak sucks.

I know it’s dumb to even say that because it’s such a given in life. The world is fallen and broken and people hurt us and we hurt them. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident. And the hurts leave scars.

Scars are the natural evidence of surviving something painful. We’ve all got them. Some you can make peace with. Some can trip you up forever. God will heal some. Some He’ll leave for a purpose. And that’s His call.

People will do a lot of things to avoid getting hurt again. And one of them is building what I call pain idols.

Now I’m not talking about holding on to things that remind you of a special season that ended or someone you loved who is gone. Everybody grieves in their own way and far be it from me to disparage any method of remembering something important to them.

I’m talking about the painful things we enshrine in our heads and pay regular homage to. Sometimes we even keep tangible reminders of unpleasant (even excruciating) times.

I’m sure somebody with a psychology degree could dissect this better than I could. But after considering my own experiences and talking to friends about theirs, I think it’s a matter of self-protection. That if we spend enough time worshiping at the altar of pain, the pain gods will somehow keep us from any future heartbreak.

Here’s an example we can probably all relate to: songs.

Wretched things. Songs can have so much power. Many relationships (and probably nearly all romantic ones) have songs attached to them. You know, the whole ‘our song’ thing. And if the relationship ended badly (or even ended at all) and you hear the song, your day is ruined.

You’re suddenly flooded with memories (good and bad) which are followed by the inevitable, merciless whys of it all. There could be tears, anger, a quick change of stations or a broken radio, depending on your personality and where you are in the grieving process.

Here are some other real-life examples from people I know:

One friend of mine kept all the receipts of everything she bought the day her divorce was final. Nothing glamorous. A tank of gas, a meal at a fast food restaurant, maybe Publix. Kept all the receipts safely in an envelope in her bedside table.

Another friend can’t say the word ‘Italy’ in front of his wife. Apparently there was some difficult experience associated with that country, so much so that any mention of that word makes them both cringe.

Another guy I know has a brother in the Atlanta area and one time he and his father had a horrible disagreement at this one spot in the airport. Now there’s awkwardness every time the two of them walk by that table when they travel there for a visit.

Restaurants. T-shirts. Idiosyncrasies. Movies. Sayings. We assign all this power to these powerless things and any time they make an unwelcome appearance in our lives, they take us down like kryptonite.

Another response is to build walls around these things. Instead of holding on to the pain, we fence it off and promise to never go there again because it will hurt. Now all of a sudden there are all these places, people, experiences that are off limits for the rest of our lives.

I’ll never eat at that restaurant again.
I’ll never speak of whatever-it-is again.
I’ll never visit that place again.
I’ll never say his/her name again.

So our lives become this minefield of memories we have to tiptoe through. Like the Pharisees, we make up extra rules for our lives to try to keep ourselves safe.

You guys. HOW. EXHAUSTING.

And I’m not throwing stones here, people. I did this myself for years. There are probably still a few idols in the shadows of my mind that need to be dethroned and purged.

One of my favorite Bible stories is in 1 Samuel 5. The Philistines had captured the ark of God and put it in the temple of Dagon and set it beside the ‘god’ they worshiped. The next morning they found the statue of Dagon had fallen facedown in front of the ark. So they stood it up and put it back in its place. The next day, they found the statue again facedown in front of the ark, the head and hands broken off. No idol can stand next to our God.

I was married for eight years before my divorce. And over the course of that relationship, I had built quite a temple to all of our things. Songs, trips, souvenirs, movies. When our marriage ended, the temple collapsed. And like a tornado survivor, I spent many days sorting through the wreckage to find anything of value to hold onto. I think I needed to know that those years counted for something.

Some things I found and immediately destroyed. I had the old cliché bonfire in my backyard and tried to rid myself of all of the reminders I could part with.

Other intangibles were harder to navigate. People, for example. Who gets to keep which friends? Divorce is hard on friends of the couple as well. Most try to stay friends with both parties, and it’s an honorable thought. But in the end, all friends typically fall more on one side than the other. (Another blog post for another day.) The losses of divorce never really end.

There were songs I used to love that I avoided. Movies that I stopped watching. I wanted closure. So anything I couldn’t destroy, I walled off and so began the creation of my minefield of memories.

Then a couple of years later I was on a roadtrip that was taking me through Atlanta. I sighed, thinking how much I missed the chilidogs at The Varsity. That restaurant, after all, was locked safely behind a concrete wall so the memories wouldn’t hurt me. I would never go there again.

But then I started thinking. I LOVED those chilidogs. And I WANTED them. Just because they were once OURS didn’t mean they could never be just MINE.

So I summoned all my resolve and drove right through that wall into the parking lot, ordered my usual #1 (two chilidogs and fries) with a Diet Coke, plopped down at a table and savored my bounty. There were no tears, no flashbacks. Just yummy, greasy chilidogs.

It was then that I realized those walls were just another form of worship. The things behind them were just things. They didn’t hurt me. The memories attached to them did, but they were just things. And you know what? I still WANTED some of them.

So I staged my own demolition party and tentatively began to tear down walls. Songs that had long been abandoned were invited back to my playlists. There was an initial sting at the first few notes for a couple of them, but no emotional collapse. And over time, I was able to start singing along.

I bought a couple of movies that used to be ‘ours.’ I found that I still enjoyed them. They weren’t ruined or tainted. They were just movies and I could still like them. They were no longer ours. They were mine.

Nobody thinks about worshiping pain. It sounds weird and creepy, like something in a horror movie. But when we take a thing and assign it a life and power of its own, it’s just another idol controlling us and blocking the healing and wholeness that God longs to bring.

This is not some cavalier just-get-over-it speech. In many ways, pain is sacred. I’m several years into the healing process. I’ve had great runs of wholeness and whip-lashing halts. And the journey continues.

But sacred pain should never be exalted over God. It must be surrendered to Him and His purposes for the lives that we’re still living. Because we are still living.

So when you’re ready, start acknowledging what pain you might be unknowingly worshiping. Several things may immediately spring to your mind. Others you may uncover as you go.

But go. Start moving again. Pray for the armor of God to protect you from explosions and walk straight through that minefield. And once those bombs have gone off, watch the Spirit wind blow the smoke away. Are you still alive? Good. Keep going.

When you come to a wall that stands between you and an idol, walk around it a few times (maybe seven, just for good measure) and let God bring it tumbling down. When that idol stands next to the God of the universe who resides in your very being, it will fall.

And then you’ll see it’s just a song. It’s just a movie. It’s just a restaurant. And it can only hurt you if you let it. So stare it down one more time and decide not to let it. Be free.

God is all about binding up the brokenhearted and setting captives free (Isaiah 61). He’s also all about comforting those who mourn (Job 5). Take your time. Grieve as long as you need to, whenever you need to and don’t let anybody rush you.

But keep pain in its place. It can be sacred, but don’t let it become sacrilegious. It can be big, but nothing is bigger than our God.

He’s got your whole world in His hands and He’s still got a masterpiece in mind for what’s left of your broken but beautiful life.