Holding What Hurts...

The other day I watched as a two year old ran to her mom with the palms of her hands pressed to her head. “Mommy...I have a heady-ache!” she declared. Her mom moved her hands to feel her head and kiss it gently...only for the girl’s small hands to return to their place.

A camper yesterday bumped his elbow on a nearby tree (trees at camp, go figure!) while building a fire during Outdoor Living Skills. He proceeded to hold it for the remainder of the hour. Babying his hurt funny bone. Towards the end of class, his teacher came to take pictures. “Why are you holding your elbow?” “Because I bumped it and it hurts!” This particular teacher has been an excitable and enthusiastic addition...with just a touch of sarcasm...all week. “Really? Does holding it make it feel better?” He paused and thought for a moment. “No...” “Then put your hand down and go join your team to build a fire!” He walked away pouting.

Holding his elbow didn’t make his elbow feel better...
It made him feel better.

In the same way a little girl reaches for head in order to deal with her “heady-ache”...
In the same way I find myself wrapping my arms gently and expertly around my abdomen when my stomach is giving me fits...
In the same way a baby will pull at his ear when he’s in pain

Holding doesn’t solve anything...
It doesn’t make it intrinsically feel better...
It makes us feel better.
It is what comes as an almost innate response
Built in to who we are as people...
Is this natural tendency to hold what is hurting.

When something hurts, we hold it.
For whatever the reason – though if we stop to think about it, we know holding our head or our stomach or our foot doesn’t actually make it any better, we naturally reach to embrace whatever exists as the source of pain.

The more I thought about this, the more I saw it transcending the obvious stomachs and heads...
We reach for babies to cradle and cuddle when they begin to cry.
We pull in the friend with that tired, exhausted-by-life look in her eyes for a hug
We listen to guy tell his story and he leaves having trusted you to hold true pieces of who he is.
We hear of broken lives and broken homes and broken hearts across the world and we itch to touch it, to put our finger in it and on it, to hold a piece of hurting world...

And when we stop to think about it seems strange.
Holding doesn’t take away the cause of the pain.
Holding a baby won’t fix the fact a diaper is dirty or a tummy is hungry.
A hug can’t erase the weariness of the weight of life on shoulders.
A listening ear doesn’t restore a painful past.
A finger, a prayer, a few dollars towards an earthquake in Japan or human trafficking in Cambodia or the starving in Haiti or the education crisis in Africa or the homelessness in New York City won’t tear out the root of tragedy, of corruption, of sin, of self...

But the natural tendency,
The innate response,
Is to hold what is hurting.

Sometimes these actions don’t make anything better as much as it makes us feel better. Like we tried. Like we did something... Like maybe, just maybe, the little things will add up to something big.

And sometimes, I think, that it is our natural, innate, and without previous thought or even (necessarily) learned behavior, because it is supposed to be our reaction.

We are supposed to hold what is hurting.
We may not be able to “fix” anything,
But maybe we can solve something.
Maybe we can point to the Fixer and the Solver...

A baby can and will know he or she cared for and can learned to trust needs will be met (check out the studies of orphans who are deprived of touch in their first year, especially...)
A friend will know she is loved – that the weight of the world she feels she must carry is not one she must carry alone – in a simple embrace.
A practical stranger could be affirmed knowing his story isn’t “stupid” with a need to be forgotten but instead your time and your heart hold a piece of his own.
A broken life, a broken home, a broken heart look down to see finger after finger...with the realization that enough fingers supporting could hold the whole world.

And perhaps,
Just maybe.
If our natural tendency to reach to hold the things that hurt becomes a matter of thought-out concern, we will begin to more clearly point to knowledge we are able to hold others only because of the One who is already holding us...
The One who reached down in the way only God could to take hold of individuals, of nations, of a world that was hurting...



"That's right. Because I, your God, have a firm grip on you and I'm not letting go. I'm telling you, 'Don't panic. I'm right here to help you.'" Isaiah 41:13 (MSG)
['For I am the LORD your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.' ~Isaiah 41:13 (NIV)]

“My sheep recognize my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them real and eternal life. They are protected from the Destroyer for good. No one can steal them from out of my hand. “John 10:27-28 (MSG)