When Hurt Compounds: How to Reach for Steady When the World Shakes

I’ve been away at the coast for a few days and, honestly, it seemed like the best possible place to be – to ponder, to process, to pray. Ross and I watched the sun travel the bluest sky and tuck itself into a thick blanket of horizon clouds. We wondered as the tide kept right on rolling in. Waves, crooked or straight, bashful or bold, were all one thing – constant. 

We talked of the greatness of this Pacific expanse, so much more than our eyes can absorb from the shore. And the way the moon draws it all gently forward and back. It’s both rugged and precise. We took it all in, watched it closely for a few days. And I was fascinated to think about the steadiness, the constancy of it all.

We’re home again, sinking into reality as it sinks into us, and the waves on the coastline are still every bit as constant. Over and over again, with or without the audience of our eyes, they are smoothing shores around the world in the most powerfully gentle way.

Every single day.

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much. Who determined its dimensions and stretched out the surveying line? What supports its foundations, and who laid its cornerstone as the morning stars sang together and all the angels[a] shouted for joy? “Who kept the sea inside its boundaries as it burst from the womb, and as I clothed it with clouds and wrapped it in thick darkness? For I locked it behind barred gates, limiting its shores. I said, ‘This far and no farther will you come. Here your proud waves must stop!’”

Job 38:4-11

Perspective

Don’t rush over that, friend. It’s perspective. And who God is here, then, and now.

It was a gift see my kids spend hour after hour enjoying the simple and yet magnificent wonders of creation. Of sand. And hear my daughter sum up a world of issues in one simple observation. “Isn’t it funny how we think of sand as one color, but when you stop and look at it, it’s never one color? It’s a hundred different colors.”

Yes, girl. Yes.

In so many ways, the world is a heart breaking place to be right now. It’s hard to sift through it all and find clarity, find truth, find words. But it helps to remember God’s sovereignty – the One who is constant here.

As I look over the broader landscape of current events, seek to understand them with a wider lens, I notice an interesting pattern.

There is the acute injury – the heart breaking headlines of how we choose to de-value what God stamped with His image and declared very good. It shatters us, as it should. But the splintery mess, brokenness that is not brought before the Lord, gives way to secondary injury as well. 

The medical community would tell us a secondary injury is a destructive change in cells and tissue after a primary injury, that leads to destruction and even death, days and weeks past the initial injury.

We don’t have to understand the vocab to have witnessed its effects.

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Take the pandemic, for example. A virus that is dangerous festers with nuance – so many thoughts and opinions. There is much we didn’t know, don’t know, and so much we disagree on. Pride inches near as we all seek to be right. Familial and friendly relationships become strained in separation and isolation. We draw lines. And it hurts.

Secondary injuries occur.

And then new headlines fill our feed. In a matter of weeks Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd become names we know and lives we grieve. Image bearing life taken by image bearing life.

It doesn’t make sense and just as so many of us try to understand and listen it all spins wild. Secondary injury – where we turn on one another with our words. Speaking up is attacked and silence is attacked. The responses are nuanced with deeper roots and larger narratives co-opted by ulterior motives and nothing feels safe.

The vitriol on social media is horrifying. Comment threads are a thousand different war zones of people ripping each other apart and we are lying to ourselves if we believe this is not destructive, if we think we are helping any cause at all with the weaponry of our words. We become wandering and wounded splinters that keep right on splintering.

“But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.”

James 3:17

Overwhelmed

It can feel overwhelming and confusing here. It’s hard to know what to say or who to believe. We’re hungry for truth and righteousness and it feels as though there is a void, as much of the dialogue and commentary sounds like propagated banter and angled perspectives. We see less real listening and more hearing what we want to hear. And even if we desire to be good listeners, is it possible to find content that isn’t heavily filtered and purposed for a particular narrative?

It’s exhausting, isn’t it?

I won’t pretend to have answers or experience that I don’t, but I do know the more I understand the love of Christ, the more His love will be evident in me. (1 John 4:19) I do know I have hope as an anchor of my soul, both sure and steadfast (Heb 6:19). And I do know that the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword (Heb 4:12) pointed directly at the obedience of my own heart.

God has given me a promised Helper here (John 14) and the fruit of that Helper (Galatians 5) is love and joy and peace. Patience and kindness and goodness. Faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. 

Paul commands the church to walk in the Spirit. He says if we live by the Spirit then we are to keep in step with the Spirit. Can you imagine what that would look like? How would keeping in step with the Spirit guide our actions and reactions? How would it rein in our going and doing, our comments, likes and shares. What a prayer, friend – God, help me keep in step with Your Spirit.

We would be remiss to overlook Paul’s warnings in Galatians 5 as well. He tells us the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, that they are opposed to each other, and he lists them out plainly. At first we might feel like we’re doing well – sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery. Perhaps we can convince ourselves we are mostly clear on those, ( or not?) but he’s just getting started. Enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions…he just keeps going. And it begins to get uncomfortable because our flesh chooses these so easily. Sin is attractive, friends.

The only way to untether ourselves from unrighteousness, the only way to walk that out, is the sanctifying process of keeping in step with the Spirit.

“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.”

Galatians 5:13-15

Paul’s words above seem almost prophetic at the moment, don’t they? We’re seeing the truth of God’s Word play out on the streets, in comment threads, between friends and family.

You know what concerns me, friend? I believe the enemy of our souls is having a heyday with our world and our hurt right now. He is at work to cause us to hate others and hate ourselves. He deals in the currency of shame and will shut down our humble and honest learning. It is his desire to make us scared to speak, scared to move, scared to love for fear we might be misunderstood. He will turn the church against itself, poke and prod us to devour one another because he thrives on destruction and will use every means possible, a million secondary injuries, to destroy. Dysfunction is his game and he is locked and loaded to capitalize on every injury that might possible unite us.

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

Ephesians 6:12

Zooming Out

Seeing the larger battle is critical here, friends. We cannot fight wisely when do not acknowledge who the real enemy is.  And once we do, we better understand Paul’s command to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. We see why he is telling us to put on the whole armor of God that we may be able to stand against the schemes of the evil one. The battle is real.

Again, I won’t promise to have answers I do not, but I do believe we can proceed in faith and hope here. We can be both grieved by sin and confident in Christ. Here are a few ways I’m steadying myself when the world feels shaky.

If you’re feeling the tremors, perhaps they will be helpful to you as well. 

• Tie yourself tightly to the Word. Daily. Keep digging, keep learning, keep asking the Holy Spirit to reveal truth to you and sanctify your heart and mind. Ask God to create a clean heart and renew a right spirit in you (Ps 51:10). 
• Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. (James 1:19). But also be aware of who you are listening to. The world is full of false narratives and ulterior motives right now. Our need to be wise and discerning, to filter what we hear through the truth of God’s Word is as great as it has ever been.
• Loosen your grip from social media. It is wise to be aware of what is going on and yet unwise to make this your diet. Fight to limit your engagement here.
• Ask questions and listen earnestly in safe places. The current timbre of the social landscape does not necessitate honest conversation. If you seek to learn, grab a friend of a different race or maybe an older woman in your church and ask if you can have coffee. Asking hard and awkward questions to someone who can see your face and trust the heart behind your questions is not only safer, but much more productive.
• Fight faithfully for a humble and contrite heart. When emotions rise it’s easy to get hardened and prideful. Fight for humility and purity in your thoughts and actions. Pray for a pure heart and a renewed spirit. Jesus said the pure in heart would see God. We must long to see Him, friend.

And finally, pray. Without ceasing, pray. (1 Thess 5:17) When you feel worry, pray. (1 Peter 5:7) When you need wisdom, pray. (James 1:5) If you don’t know what to say, pray. Jonathon Edwards said, “Prayer is as natural an expression of faith as breathing is to life.” Let your faith breath in prayer to the One who knows and sees. The One who is wisdom.

Let’s start here.

God, we know confusion is not of you. But sometimes the mess seems so expansive, the problems so big and ugly and old that we don’t even know where to begin. But we know who you are – the one who holds the very expanse of the ocean in the palm of His hand. Lead us here, Lord. Teach us. Break our hearts for what breaks yours. Give us wisdom as we seek you. Give us compassion and discernment. Help us to walk in step with the Holy Spirit, that the fruit of the Spirit may grow in us. Make us prisoners of Hope because we know you, God, and we live in a world that needs Your saving grace and redeeming power now more than ever. We trust You as Sovereign, worthy. Use us Lord to be a light in dark places, and grant us the courage to honor and obey your Word above all. In Jesus name, Amen.

Keep walking in grace and truth bravely, friend. I’m walking it our right along with you.

Katie