Noelle Kilgore's Blog

Ben is off writing in Amarillo with my brother, Teel, this week.  I mention this only because I hate when he’s gone, but the silver lining is the fact that I get to watch some girly stuff or pointless gibberish.  So while flipping through the channels, I stopped on the show Guiliana and Bill.  I’ve never seen the show, but hey had recently experienced a miscarriage.  You saw this turmoil of struggling to deal with what’s before them, but also moving forward.  A friend recommended that Guiliana go see a counselor to talk things through.  She explained to the counselor her pain, but was also confused about what to do next.  She told her that her husband, Bill, was a sports guy, so he kept encouraging her to “get back on the horse and try again.”  She wasn’t talking bad about him, just simply explaining where they both were.  The counselor turned to her and said “It’s important to get back up, but not while you’re still hurting from the fall.”

This stuck with me.  I know everyone’s situation and circumstances are different and it is important to get up and try again after you have fallen, but I think it’s just as important to take the time to deal with what you’ve just walked through.  Pain is an indicator of hurt, of something not quite right within us.  It’s a natural thing God has put in us.  In sports, when an athlete gets injured, he stays on the “injured” list until he gets released to play again.  Healing is vital…it’s important, and it’s the only thing that can make us healthy again.  In my personal life, it’s easy to pretend like nothing happened.  If I ignore how I feel, it will just go away.  The crummy thing about that, is it all starts piling up until one day, you’re reacting to things in ways that are even shocking you.  I’m not saying to wallow in your pain, or to stay there, but I am saying, ACKNOWLEDGE IT!!!  It’s okay.  It doesn’t mean you are weak or a coward or a winey baby.  It means you are human and if we don’t acknowledge hurt and deal with it in a healthy way, then we are in trouble and so is everyone else in our world.

You hear all these stories of people killing one another or making terrible decisions or ending their own life and after peeling back all the layers, most, if not all, had been hurt in various ways, and never dealt with it.  Nobody had a clue what they had been feeling.  I have to wonder if the results would be different.  I know they would.  It’s my heart for people to  move towards God’s healing.  He is the ultimate healer…of emotions, physical ailments, anything,  and He longs to spend time with you.  I have found that spending time with God, whether it’s surrounding myself with worship music or good teaching or even just a nice walk, that in those moments, God heals me.  He’s bigger than your anger, you don’t scare Him.  He’s not shocked by what you’ve done…so kick and scream and tell Him everything.  It’s in those moments, that He wants to hold you, tell you it’s okay and the funny thing is, I don’t think He’s saying, “get back on that horse again.”  I think He’s there the second you hit the ground, lays there with you, sees all the wounds, gently patches you up, and then if you want and if you ask Him to, He climbs on that horse with you and you ride together, this time with more stability.  Will you fall again, probably.  Will you get hurt again, probably.  And EVERYTIME, He’s there with you.  You don’t have to walk around defeated.  You can be strong and will be strong, but not unless you deal.

I’m a big advocate of having a safe place to talk, whether that’s a counselor, a pastor, a friend…allow yourself to have an outlet and talk through stuff.  We are surrounded by humans, which means we are going to fail and hurt one another…it’s just gonna happen.  You can pretend that you are a repeller of all evil, but under that dent in your armor is a little bruise.  I’m sure there are some that disagree with this and that’s totally fine.  I just know from my personal experience and walking with others through difficult times of hurt, the second you acknowledge the hurt, the healing begins.