It's Not OK. But I'm OK.

After learning to listen to her feelings and to her body, Jen Scheuermann tastes the healing Jesus offers.

“It’s OK,” I told myself, picturing the way our conversation would play out. I would bring up the scheduling conflict, and he would say we should cancel our trip.  “It wasn’t a big trip anyway,” I rationalized to no one but myself. 

It’s true that it was just a one-night get away at a nearby bed & breakfast. But it was also true that we needed a night away. A night to escape our frenzied schedules and to reconnect. We needed a night to be husband and wife instead of just parents. We needed a night to remember why we got married so many years ago.

“We can reschedule,” I whispered silently. 

But as I reassured myself that cancelling our trip didn’t matter, I noticed it. A barely perceptible aching sensation deep in my chest. This sensation is new to me. Well, perhaps it’s more accurate to say this is a sensation I’ve only recently become aware of. I suspect it has been present before. I also suspect that I previously ignored it and went on about my day. And that pattern of feeling disappointed and then ignoring my heartache while declaring “It’s OK,” had slowly made me not OK.

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But Jesus. 

Jesus has repeatedly shown me the difference between ignoring the wounds in my heart and allowing Him to heal them. He has shown me that setting the broken pieces of my heart to the side is not the same as letting them go. He has slowly helped me see that not acknowledging the hurt others have caused is not the same as offering forgiveness. And He has shown me that the first step in changing my behavior is actually noticing my very own feelings. 

Jesus wants me to pay attention to my feelings in the moment instead of ignoring them. He wants me to bring them to Him in prayer, instead of disregarding them. And since I have become intentional about doing this, I have noticed that physical sensations–such as a subtle aching in my chest–often accompany my emotions. In fact, these physical sensations are sometimes the very first thing I notice as they alert me to the fact that something in my heart isn’t right.

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Jesus has shown me that setting the broken pieces of my heart to the side is not the same as letting them go. #CatholicMom

I picked up my prayer journal and began to write, slowly exploring and bringing to Jesus all that lay behind that subtle ache in my chest. We looked at the lies stemming from this deep heart wound, lies I’d believed and ordered my world around. We looked at the vows I’d made in the past, vows to avoid ever feeling this particular ache again. And He reminded me of the truth regarding my worth and identity. 

And slowly He brought me to the place where I can say, “No. What happened is not OK. But with Jesus, I’m OK.”