“…when we serve an all-loving, all-powerful God, we have no idea of the good He can weave from the tangled, broken, and frayed threads of our lives.” ~ Kay Arthur (from When The Hurt Runs Deep)
Let me ask you… are you hurting?
Have you been hurt?
Is your heart breaking as you read this… or maybe you have just met someone and you have heard their story… and you shake your head in bewildered confusion as you can’t help but ask… “Why?”
If you follow my blog you might have read a story I shared about a child I met this summer… I sat down with this little girl with hopeful expectation of telling of her “how to ask Jesus into her heart”. As I began asking her questions she began to spill out all the abuse and hurt she had suffered from the hands of the ones who were ordained by God to supposed to be protecting and loving her.
As I listened to her story the thought of spewing out the ABC’s of salvation or quoting the Roman Road seemed quite shallow and silly. So instead I just listened and and when a door opened in her conversation I shared how God has told us that we are never alone, and His name is El Roi the God who sees, and I shared with her how to call on Christ , but mainly I just listened.
This girl’s hurt ran deep… and the worst part is she spoke of her hurt in such calmness as though this was just life as it should be… she spoke of it just as if she was telling me what she had for breakfast or what tv shows she liked to watch.
So I spent the next hour and several days just listening to her and loving her… giving her the biggest smile I could every time I caught her eye and praying that God would be able to use what time I had with her to show her His love through me…
I also not long ago heard the story of young girl who had been adopted from overseas. She was older when she was rescued by her American family from this orphanage. So she experienced much abuse. She took the responsibility of doing all she could to protect and care for the younger one’s in the orphanage and she experiences the pain of their hurt and the struggle of carrying her own…
And now here in America, in the safety of her new home, the nightmares are there, and she asks her new mother who bathes her in prayers and the Word… how could God be real if He let that happen to me… and to all the others there. And why did He pick me to leave and leave the others there? As a mother, a parent, how do you answer questions like these?
Kay Arthur’s book When The Hurt Runs Deep will help. She doesn’t shy away from the hard stuff. Real stories of real hurt are addressed in this book and help is given as Kay walks you through the Scriptures.
God has not sugar-coated His word. He has not hidden the ugliness of our fallen world nor the deeds done by sinful man in the depravity of our minds. His word does not pat us on the back with an insincere “there, there”. He gets down in the muck with us and He will grab us under the arm and pull us along and out of our miry pit covered in barbed wire if we will just grab hold of Him and let Him.
He never says it will be easy. He never says it will never hurt. He just says trust Me.
When The Hurt Runs Deep is a book that is meant for you to read with pen in hand. I love a book I can write in. You can see a little about what I am talking about as you look at an excerpt from the first chapter of the book. Or listen to the podcast below.
Now when you get this book in your own hands, and as you read through the book, fill it with your own hurts as you read of the hurts of others. Underline the words of hope and let them resonate on your mind and in your heart. See it through even if you are so mad at God right now for the hurt you have experienced or the hurt that someone you love has experienced. See it through. Write out your anger. Trust me, God can handle it. Lean into Him precious one… Pound your fist against His chest if you need to and cry out in His face if you have to… but lean into Him.
Disclaimer: I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.