Press On!

I was watching my ten-year-old granddaughter playing in a hockey tournament recently when a ball was struck and it flew up, hitting her on her hip bone. It was naturally very painful and she had to sit out for a short time. My son, her father, went over to comfort her as she cried in his arms and he listened to her telling him how it felt and how much it was hurting. After a while, with the comfort from her father (and the aid of an ice pack!), she had recovered sufficiently to rejoin the game, but she was a little reluctant to do so. At this point, both her parents, not belittling the severity of what had happened, encouraged her to continue to play and to push on through the pain. This might have seemed a little hard-hearted, but when she did go back on to the pitch, she scored a spectacular goal and ended the day with great satisfaction and enjoyment. She would have missed out on this if she had allowed the pain and self-pity to envelope her.

Watching my son with her, reminded me of how tenderly our Heavenly Father cares for us when we are wounded, and He wants to comfort us. However, there are times when, having received His comfort and healing, He tells us to press on and not to continue to dwell on the past pain and trauma. This does not mean that we simply forget our past wounding, but that we do not continue to focus on it. Otherwise we can start to wallow in self-pity, which is destructive and can cause us to miss out on the good things God has for us.

So when we are wounded, the first thing we need to do is to come to our Heavenly Father, pouring out our pain and telling Him how we are feeling, allowing Him to embrace us and to pour in His comfort and healing. Then there may come a time when the Lord tells us to stop focusing on the pain and to press on. This is not because He is hard-hearted and doesn’t care, but He knows that this is the best way forward for us in our lives. Hebrews 12:1-2 tells us to: “… run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.” The Lord may be saying to some of us today that we need to stop feeling sorry for ourselves and to press on, keeping our eyes fixed on Him.