From Hell's Heart I Stab At Me

I guess by definition I am a masochist, a glutton for punishment. I love pain because it has defined me, motivated me, and has cultivated some very good mechanisms which have helped me to survive. There is a fear of allowing anything into my life that ceases the pain. Why? Because pain has become my friend. One of the most eccentric 16 year olds I have ever met has articulated this far better than I ever could. Listening to his friend pleading with him to give the totality of his life to Jesus (that is all of his wounds and hurts and grief and pain and guilt and shame and on and on…) for more than an hour and a half, this young man paused, took a deep breath and gave his response:

“I don’t want to give my pain to Jesus. It is my pain that helps me relate to others. It is my pain that allows me to understand what people around me are going through.” 

This resonated with me far more than the words of his beloved friend. If Jesus is the great physician who came, not for the healthy but the sick, than this is how I would describe our relationship:

Sticking out of my chest is a barbed dagger placed squarely in the center of my heart. Jesus stands before me, beckoning me to allow him to remove it. There are no words he uses to explain why he is there, I know why he’s there. But I have words for him:

“Don’t touch it… DO. NOT. TOUCH. IT!” 

Again, no words. He knows why I feel this way. As soon as I allow him to remove this dagger and heal this self inflicted wound a number of things will happen. I will have to stop hurting myself as a means of coping. I will have to relinquish the illusion of control. I will have to face the very things I worked so diligently to repress. I will have to forgive. I will have to love. I will have to be merciful…

 I will have to approach this Jesus not as a self made man, not as a man who has picked himself up by his bootstraps, but as a small boy. I am but a child who quivers in the darkness; a child who weeps when he is alone. I am a child who fears what he is. I am child who stands in hatred of his reflection. I am a child who cannot believe that this perfect carpenter would love him. 

I do not physically harm myself, but an image that sticks in my head when I fall asleep (during periods of my darkest depression), is that of me stabbing away at my heart in hatred (hence, the dagger analogy). One night, while being unable to sleep because of this lingering thought, my mind’s eye saw an image of Jesus, nailed to a cross, with thorns for a crown. It was dark, unlike the baroque style paintings in which Jesus is illuminated. I approached him, and our eyes met. Once again, he communicated so much in his face, but he said nothing. Taking the dagger, I placed it in his heart instead of mine. In that dagger is the totality of my hatred, the totality of my wrath generated by my pain. In this act this Jesus does something I could not do for myself, he bears the burden that I cannot carry. He forgives the debt that I cannot pay. He pardons my sin, and not only mine but also the sins perpetrated against me.

I don’t know if any of this is helpful to anyone. I don’t know if this is blasphemous or inducing of adoration. I simply do not know. It is helpful to me as I write these words. But here is something that I do know, something that causes me to weep every time I think on it: 

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!