So one of my all time favorite movies is the move "Garden State".
The movie follows the story of Andrew a young man who had been medicated for most of his life as a result of a trauma that occurred when he was a child. As a result, his father put him on anti-depressants to the extent that for most of his life, he has been completely detached from his emotions.
The moment the movie came together for me is a moment after the medications have stopped and the feelings have started to surface, Andrew starts to cry for the first time and says: "This #&*%'en hurts." I know what you are thinking: "What horrible language!"
Look beyond it though... Doesn't it hurt sometimes... So much that normal words won't accurately convey the depth of the emotion? Sometimes, feeling the depth of who you are hurts and we live in a culture that does everything it can to avoid it.
We try to create a million distractions that keep us from recognizing how much it sucks to live in a fallen world and to experience that fallen nature in and around ourselves. We surround ourselves with televisions and movies, and games and noise noise noise, not to mention pornography, materialism, intellectual elitism all as means to numb ourselves, drug ourselves from feeling the pain of living in a fallen world.
It is however important that we do not numb ourselves to the realities of our falleness. It is only then that we can hope to realize the depth of our Father's love and mercy for us. Only by seeing the effects of fallen world not only as an abstract removed external reality, but also an internal reality as well do we realize how important the relationship with our Heavenly Father really is.
Feeling bad, though not pleasant, is a natural and important facet of sanctification. When we acknowledge the hurt that the fall has had on our lives we are then gifted with the power and grace to overcome it. Pain in this case is a very healing thing, much more than the shallow medications we use to not to feel.
The truth is, even in life with God, it sometimes just has to Hurt...
(If you don't believe me, ask the psalmist.)
1 comment:
The pain is very real once the noise dies off (or is turned off). I don't think what I feel is always pain when its quiet. Most of the time it feels like insecurity and fear.
I, for one, am very insecure (I'll admit it). My security most often belies in distraction and my comforts oft mask the truth. My crutches in this world, albeit foods, music, more music, talk radio, the tv set, et. al, simply serve to distract me from the message that God wants me to listen for, hear and register.
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