Rugby players, or hockey players who have taken a hard fall on a rugby or hockey field, understand what it is like to have a grass burn on the knee. It is very painful and sensitive. When you bath or shower, it hurts even more when warm water touches it. In the evening, when you go to sleep, you also do not want a sheet or duvet to touch it. It is very sensitive and sore. Such an open, visible grass burn can be seen by everyone, and it can be cleaned and treated.
The best way to describe emotional hurt or pain in a person’s heart is to compare it to a grass burn on the knee. The only difference is that the grass burn on the heart cannot be seen by anyone. You can therefore endure enormous emotional pain and pretend that everything is fine with you. Yes, you put on your mask, laugh at the world, while on the inside you are slowly dying and bleeding.
If you neglect the sore spot on your knee and do not clean and treat it, it will become septic and can fester badly. Eventually it can negatively affect your whole body. It works in exactly the same way with the sore spot on your heart. If you simply leave it, it will not heal. No, it will fester even more and negatively affect your entire being. Such a wound always runs the risk of bursting open unexpectedly with very negative consequences.
You read Naomi’s story in the book of Ruth. Do yourself a favor and read the four chapters of Ruth. It is deeply moving. Naomi goes with her husband and two sons to Moab after a famine breaks out in Bethlehem. Her husband and two sons die, and Naomi feels empty and carries intense emotional pain and hurt.
She makes no secret of it, however. She does not try to hide it from anyone. She is honest about how she feels and about the fact that she is broken after the death of her husband and sons. Among other things, you read in Ruth 1:20–21:
“…call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty.”
Each of us can learn from Naomi. Stop thinking that it is the “right” thing to do to pretend that everything is always fine with you. Begin to understand that there will be times in this cruel world when life will be heavy and difficult. None of us are exempt from this. The fall into sin and its consequences hurt us all. Naomi was relentlessly honest. You know what—God is big enough to handle it. He knows it anyway.
Despite her honesty and the fact that she did not understand everything, she did not abandon God. No, she continued to cling to Him for healing. The end of Naomi’s story is beautiful in Ruth 4:16, where she sits content and whole with her grandchild on her lap. God touched her and ultimately blessed her. She is full of joy and gladness. Yes, like a fattened calf leaping for joy, as it is written in Malachi.
Written by Johan Smith