Talk about it Tuesday - When God hurts your feelings.

It seems kind of weird to think about it like that…but yes. There have been times in my life when God has hurt my feelings. My thoughts are supposed to align with His way of thinking, but that hasn’t always been the case.

Many times in life we will walk through hard times. We go through breakups and ended friendships. We don’t get the raise, the promotion, or sometimes even the interview that we know we are qualified for. We wander through seasons where we feel forgotten, like maybe God isn’t hearing us. We experience the death of our sweet pets, loved ones, children and spouses. We walk through health battles where we pump poison into our veins to kill cancer. We struggle to conceive a child…then have that dream taken away in an instant by miscarriage.

All of these things hurt our feelings.

They knock the breath from our lungs and put knots in our stomachs.

They shake our confidence and challenge our identity.

They bring us to our knees…even though we feel we have no words left to pray.

We wonder how God can love us so much, and still allow such pain and heartbreak into our lives.

Last week, I took Xander in for his 1-year-old checkup. This included 4 shots and a finger prick to draw blood. To say he was upset would be the understatement of the century. We had tears, then the kind of cry where no sound comes out, drool, snot…the whole deal. He was pitiful, and I was feeling pretty bad about it all. When he wouldn't have anything to do with the milk or yogurt melts that I brought to serve as post-shot distractions…all that was left to do was hold him while he sat in my lap and sobbed into my chest.

I wanted to explain to him that it was all for a reason. That the shots would help him to grow up strong, healthy and disease free. That the blood draw was to check his iron levels so we could make sure he has enough energy to learn and play. But alas, he is 13 months old and that talk would have been a waste. I settled on telling him that I love him so much, that I would only allow this pain if it was for his good.

Don’t we think God feels the same way? That he wants to give us the details? To tell us that the position we want would result in stress that would lead to a heart attack. That the ended relationship we are grieving would have brought us years of hurt and emotional abuse. That the miscarriage was to protect an innocent little baby from a difficult and physically painful life.

But would we fully understand? Probably not…it would be about as useless as me trying to explain polio to my 1-year-old.

Sometimes we don't need to know the details. Sometimes we don't have the level of understanding we would need to even grasp the details. This goes against what our flesh longs for.

Friends, often the sovereignty of God is going to break your heart and hurt your feelings…and that is ok.

Because our Father knows best.

That's when we have to crawl into his lap and sob into his chest, while he wraps his arms around us and says “My child, I love you so much. I am only allowing this pain for your good.”