Quotes about Pain

felt stuck with a suffocating sense of wanting to feel better but not knowing how. My brain has such a hard time overriding my heart sometimes. One rejection after another did quite a number on my heart. And each new rejection didn't just add hurt; it multiplied the pain that was already there. That accumulation created a dark feeling of hopeless defeat.

I don't know what to say or how to say it." So I said nothing. Not a word. I stuffed it all down and started to build a barrier to hide behind. After the incident, I smiled when I saw her, but I held her at a distance. She knew something was wrong, but when she questioned me about it, I lied. "Everything's fine," I said. But everything wasn't fine. Not at all.

Cynicism dressed like a security guard, making me believe that if I hoped for less, it would protect me and prevent more pain.

And the gaping hole left behind is in some ways worse than death. If their absence was caused by death, you would grieve their loss. But when their absence is caused by rejection, you not only grieve their loss but you also have to wrestle through the fact that they wanted this.

All I have to do is stand at the gravesite of my sister who died way too young and in way too much pain to be reminded that none of this is easy or tidy. Some things won't be fixed on this side of eternity; they just have to be walked through.

This isn't an indication that your healing isn't working. It's just an indication that you're a human still holding on to some hurt that needs to be resolved.

Hurting but still hoping—that is the human journey.

C. S. Lewis said it best: "We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be."1

A heaviness settled in that I couldn't explain or pinpoint exactly. I'm not sure how to properly describe it, except to say on different days it crept up with varying personas that seemed to hold me together and rip me apart simultaneously. Cynicism dressed like a security guard, making me believe that if I hoped for less, it would protect me and prevent more pain. In reality, though, it was a thief in disguise, out to steal every bit of closeness between me and those I love.

Because rejection is an abstract word that doesn't have an image attached to it, I

But lying in the critical care unit—an abdomen distending more and more with each passing hour, tubes running in and out of a body refusing to function, and a pain pump set to deliver the highest doses but still not relieving the pain—will make death look quite appealing.

Today's rejections, big or subtle, are like stealth bombs that zing straight to my core, locating hurts from my past and making them agonizingly present all over again.