Happiness,
Holidays and Healing.
I had to stop
with three, otherwise I would have a 4-H sort of thing going, and that would
just raise all sorts of copyright issues!
And, just to set the record straight, I DO like When Harry Met Sally, but I don’t know that I would really rank
it as my favorite…primarily because I’m not a “favorite” sort of person, I like
all sorts of things. Although, would
have to say, there aren’t many Meg Ryan shows I don’t enjoy…
Now, back to
the topic at hand…the 3 H’s above. The
holiday season, for those who are not married, often creates a sense of
unhappiness in the midst of everybody else’s “happiest time of the year.” Seeing families and couples in the midst of
holiday preparation and celebration can accentuate for single people that they don’t have that special someone around
in their lives. A divorced person adds
to it that awareness that, in the not so distant past, they DID have such a
person around, who is now gone. The same
is true for a widowed person. I think
the hardest of all are those who experience the reality that the holiday season
have a high rate of divorce applications surrounding it, as if this holiday was
the last hurrah. So, instead of
happiness, loneliness, sorrow, uncertainty and pain might be the experience. Which is the harsh reality of our world
anyway, that there are always hard things as well as joyful things, and we have
to learn to handle both.
Because of
these hard things, many people, especially out of loneliness, start intensely
seeking someone to marry or at least to be with. Perhaps you have seen, as I have, individuals
who divorce, shortly after getting into another relationship that ends up being
very shortlived and generally not very healthy.
Perhaps they get together out of the loneliness, or a neediness to be
with someone, or even just a physical attraction and desire. Sometimes I think there are some who seek
that individual believing that if they can just get with the right person,
everything will be okay, that, “I will be okay. I won’t hurt anymore. I won’t be lonely anymore. I will be complete.” Holiday
loneliness can drive such an urgency.
But the truth is, all too often, these kind of relationships do not
solve problems and issues, instead they exacerbate the problems and issues that
are there, or maybe even create more of them!
Today, I just
want to encourage my readers to be wise.
How much better it is to experience some inner healing before trying to
start into another relationship.
Remember that young surfer who was attacked by a shark and lost a
limb? She didn’t get back on the
surfboard that day. She did get back on
eventually, but first she allowed time for her wounds to heal. We see the same thing all the time in
professional sports. When a player is
injured, they are taken off the field or court.
They generally don’t come back out during the game. And maybe not for several games. They get back into the game once the healing
is complete. Although the wounds of
divorce and broken relationships are not physically visible, and the healing is
harder to identify within, the wounding still needs time for healing before an
individual “gets back into the game,” so to speak.
Imagine a
football team on the field of players who are all injured, some limping down the
field, others having arms that can no longer move to throw or catch a ball, and
others walking around dazed because of their concussions. I suspect it would not be very hard to defeat
that kind of a team, don’t you agree?
So, by analogy, doesn’t it make sense that if you are going to get into
another relationship, it would be wisest to do so when you are in good
condition, when your wounds have healed up, when you can bring a more healthy
YOU into that relationship?
Some talk
about how many years it takes to heal from divorce, sometimes tying it to the
number of years married. I have heard
one year of healing for every four or five years of marriage. But too often, people rush back into the
field of relationships half healed, like the players of the team I
described. Some people may do that to
try to prove that THEY aren’t the people who are somehow to blame for the
marriage, that THEY are okay! But to
rush back too fast increases the odds of another relationship failure. And the statisticians say that in second or
third marriages, the odds are already
way against us.
The best
holiday gift for those who have been relationship wounded, is the gift of
healing.
I like that the prophecies
about Jesus mention the phrase (echoed by Wesley in his Christmas carol “Hark
the Herald”) “risen with healing in his wings.”
Christmas is about healing, healing of sin, sorrow and the woes of
earth. I encourage you to allow
Christmas to remind you to seek the healing from God that brings wholeness,
rather than settling for something less.
How much better it is for two people who have experienced healing and
restoration to join together in marriage than for two still limping in pain to
try to start something fresh in their weakened state. If you have a friend or family member who you
believe is rushing into a new relationship too quickly, though they may not be
willing to hear what you have to say, it is still a caring thing to encourage
them to consider slowing down. As I have
heard said many times, “If it is truly love, it will still be love in a year
from now, because love can wait.”
TL:dr New relationships are best pursued when
healing is complete, not from the state of loneliness or desperation.
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