Psalms 94:19
“When anxiety was great within me,
your consolation brought me joy.”

At the jail last night one of the guys in the room said he just loved sticking a needle in his arm. Another guy talked about what brought him “joy” and it wasn’t about living in God’s word.  Came home to an email that a young man at our church has committed suicide. A phone call about a grandson who’s just gone from juvenile to adult in his crimes, fueled by drugs and alcohol, and isn’t getting bailed out this time.

What’s happening on the inside of our forehead? How “sacred” are our thoughts, our pains, our memories, that we don’t give them any light to heal? How broken are we really?

The guy who “loves” shooting up didn’t drink or drug until his wife left 10 years ago. I wonder (not really) if there isn’t some pain there behind the mask of bravado.

The guy who gets his “joy” from debauchery turns out that he is also very quick to violently defend his pride. Hmmmm, I wonder if there aren’t some brutal memories behind the mask of being cool.

A young man takes his life. Someone I know was volunteering with him at our church is surprised and shaken up by it – I don’t think he had any idea of what was going on behind the guys forehead. That’s to bad because this guy is very wise in brokenness.

The young man, in spite of all the warnings, in spite of all the pleading, in spite of all the wisdom poured into his cup, is sitting in jail. How many layers of pain and rejection will have to be peeled back to get some Son on those wounds so they can begin to heal?

How sacred is our pain? How tightly we hold on to it. How boldly we pop up and say “nah, I’m good” while inside we are sobbing, begging for the beatings to stop.

One thing we think we’re doing, but we’re not, is hiding it from God. He knows our pain, He knows our history, He knows the sins we’ve committed and the sins committed against us. He knows. The same God that screwed up funerals because He kept bringing people back to life, He knows.

Taking the past tense of the verse and moving it to today: When I’m anxious, your consolation brings me joy.

He knows, He loves us, He wants to see us whole, He wants us to be joyful, He wants us to love and be loved, He wants us to lean on Him.

What do we hold behind our foreheads? How many memories, how much pain? Let Him in behind that thin layer of impenetrable skull. Trust in Christ to heal us with Sonlight, warm, bright, joyous, loving Sonlight.

A journey starts with one step, the first step.