Sour Lemons
One night this last week I was in the mood for a cheesy romance film (yes, I admit I’m a hopeless romantic at heart) and found a movie called Love Happens made in 2009.
In the film, Burke Ryan (played by Aaron Eckhart) was a grief guru who wrote a book called A-Okay! based off of his experience with his wife’s fatal car accident. He is in Seattle teaching a workshop to others to help them walk through their grief. It is in the hotel where the workshop is being held that he meets Eloise (played by Jennifer Aniston), a florist shop owner who is there to add her flowers to the hotel lobby. They meet and of course it doesn’t go over very well (typical romance-style). As the movie progresses, we learn that Burke tends to drink at night, refuses to take the elevator, has mood swings, is estranged from his father-in-law, and just seems very lonely. As the relationship grows, it becomes apparent to Eloise that Burke really hasn’t healed from his wife’s death, despite what his book or workshop persona conveys.
She just wants to help him, but he pushes her away in a moment of anger and actually tries to tell her she is the one who needs help. When they see each other again, Eloise has learned the truth (don’t worry I won’t give it away). She sadly tells him that if he doesn’t give himself a break “this is going to be your life and I just think that’s sad.” And then she walks away from him and the relationship.
Burke finally begins to realize (in a deleted scene) that “Everybody knows what they want. We just build up so many walls, obstacles and excuses, we lose sight of it.” He slowly comes out of denial and faces his grief head on. And of course he gets the girl at the end.
When it comes to the hurt, grief and/or unforgiveness in our lives, we can be just like Burke.
We accept our negative behavior as who we are even though it affects our loved ones.
We put on a happy face and get on with life even though it doesn’t really work anymore.
We push others away who want to help because we build walls around our heart.
We bury the hurt.
We bury the pain.
Until we finally say YES to God’s refining fire.
In my last blog, I mentioned that we live in a train wreck of a world. Bad things happen to us and sometimes we do bad things to others. It’s inevitable. Why?
Because we live in a broken world, and we are all broken, even those of us who walk through life feeling like nothing bad has ever really happened to them. We have all been hurt or wounded at some point in our lives, especially as children, because we see the world through a child’s eyes. Those wounds don’t just go away over time. They are still there. Hidden beneath the surface.
And because we are all broken, we sometimes don’t know how to handle the fires that come our way. We deny it, hide it, push it aside, sweep it under the rug, and/or comfort ourselves with addictive behaviors.
As Christians, sometimes our coping mechanism can actually be to over-spiritualize it.
Lysa Terkeurst, in her book, Forgiving What You Can’t Forget, talked about how her counselor called her out on her own coping mechanism. “You hyperspirtualize what you’ve been through to the point where you deny your feelings rather than actually deal with your pain.”
According to Lysa we say things like:
“I’m good. I’m fine. I’ve just decided to move on.”
“God will eventually make everything all right.”
“As a Christian, I know I should forgive, so I have.”
“What’s in the past is in the past. I’m just walking forward.”
Those are great statements, unless…
you are using them and they are keeping you stuck in a bad place. Putting on a smiling face while filled with unhealed hurt inside is a set up for an eventual blow up. Sometimes it seems easier to deny my pain than to do the hard work to deal with and heal what’s really there. Lysa Terkeurst, Forgiving What You Can’t Forget
At the beginning of the film, Burke’s father-in-law says (referring to Burke), “He’s making lemonade out of lemons. (dramatic pause) When are you going to stop lying son?”
It’s so much easier to pretend. To put on the mask. To push aside the hurt. To make it look like we made lemonade out of lemons. But at some point we need to stop lying to ourselves, face the truth, and accept God’s refining fire in our lives.
Will it hurt? Probably. But it’s worth it.
Why spend a lifetime in pain and bleeding on loved ones, when you can have your wound healed by the Master Physician?
I think I’d rather suck on the sour lemons for a moment of time than spend my life drowning my soul in imitation lemonade.
What about you?
Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com
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