surrender

Why is it a human reaction to mask our feelings?
If someone hurts us, we seek to hurt others.
If someone is playing games, we seek the key to win the prize.
If someone breaks our heart, we seek everything but the one thing that can help heal all of the broken pieces back into place.
It is absolutely true that we all have a God-sized hole in our heart. When someone else breaks our heart, it takes me back to the fall in Genesis. I imagine holding a large glass bowl, and the moment Adam takes a bite of the apple Eve gave him, that bowl falls onto concrete, shattering into who knows how many pieces. Because we are human, we immediately get on our knees and start searching for every broken piece because we assume we can fix ourselves.

Much like Adam and Eve, we are embarrassed. Embarrassed that we allowed another human the ability to cause us pain in the first place. Embarrassed that it hurts more than we think it should. Embarrassed that despite "guarding our heart," we let them in, and they did exactly what we were terrified they would do in the first place.
In a perfect world, let's say we find all of those missing pieces. Yet once they are glued back into place, nothing feels the same, and there's still this gap that isn't being fulfilled. We feel like nothing we are doing is bringing us happiness again. We go through all the stages of grief when ending a friendship, a relationship, a "situationship", a marriage, or even experiencing the loss of a loved one. It alters everything in our world. We have to cope with the feelings attached to it, yet we try our best to mask them because vulnerability feels far more terrifying than the hurt itself.
The first is denial—we don't even let our minds begin to think it's actually over. There's this thought of, "It's just a dream." We live in the time before anything changed. In the happiness. We replay everything in our minds, asking ourselves where it went wrong, convincing ourselves there's no way this person is really walking out of our life right now.
The second is anger—asking ourselves how this could happen to us. Whether it was intentional, unexpected, or a gradual separation, we grow angry at the person. We are mad that they cannot meet the expectation we had for them. We are angered that they can't love us enough to fight for us.
Then we get to bargaining—asking if there's any possible way for them to stay in our life. Please, Lord, allow it to happen. We beg for one more chance. An opportunity to redo everything if it means keeping them in our life, even if we watch it slowly suck the life out of us.
Which leads to depression—being so low that we find other things to occupy the place of that person. Some of us turn to drugs or alcohol. Some turn to other humans and use them because they don't know how to handle hurt or sit alone in silence.
Somewhere down the line, when we do learn to sit alone, whether it's because we've finally hit the breaking point or we're done chasing the world, we arrive at acceptance. Acceptance that people hurt people, and we can never predict how someone is going to show up for us, but we can predict how we show up for them.
How so?
Because if you are rooted in Christ, you may go through these stages, but that God-sized hole is fulfilled. You know that no matter how bad it hurts, God is a good God, and He works all things together for His glory. The pain you feel in this moment is one prayer away from becoming a testimony.
God asks us for surrender. For us to die to ourselves and pick up our cross daily, yet we allow our emotions to stop us. We stop finding joy in the Lord because our focus is on the flesh, not the Father.
We're all sinners. We all mess up. We want people in our lives despite their actions because we aren't meant to walk this life alone. We are actually called to love others, yet when people hurt us, we allow it to change us instead of showing up the way we should.
We are all broken in some way, shape, or form. We all have our own past that constantly tries to prevent us from moving forward. We are all seeking to fill that God-sized hole because it is a daily choice to allow Him to fill it and help us through what we are walking through.
Lot's wife was asked not to look back, yet she did. What happened? She was turned into a pillar of salt. Not only does this show us that the past should remain in the past, but it is also a prime example of love being a choice. A choice to love others and, most importantly, a choice to love God.
If someone chose to walk away from you, lay it at God's feet. You can't change that.
If you chose to walk away from someone and you feel guilty, you may have unresolved feelings that one simple conversation could change.
If someone walked into your life completely unexpectedly, trust that God did that because He knew you needed them.
If you find you've hurt someone, extend the apology today. Ask yourself this: If they walk away from you and never speak to you again, are you going to be okay with that? If the answer is no, then strip away the pride, the confusion, the anger, the frustration, whatever it is that is stopping you from choosing to love them.
Die to your flesh and pick up your cross.
Jesus is coming back soon, and we should be rejoicing in the Lord each and every morning. We should not mask who God handcrafted us to be. Psalm 139:13 says, "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb."
God didn't handcraft us to hurt people. God did not create us with the intention of us being alone. God wants us to restore relationships if they are worth restoring, and if they aren't, to trust that He has a plan for that too.
When someone hurts you, how are you going to show up for them?
We cannot control who stays, who leaves, or who hurts us, but we can control whether we allow that pain to harden our hearts or draw us closer to the One who heals them.