April 19, 2026
The New Place
You have to begin to trust that your experience of emptiness is not the final experience, that beyond it is a place where you are being held in love. As long as you do not trust that place beyond your emptiness, you cannot safely re-enter the place of pain. So you have to go into the place of your pain with the knowledge in your heart that you have already found the new place. You have already tasted some of its fruits. The more roots you have in the new place, the more capable you are of mourning the loss of the old place and letting go of the pain that lies there. You cannot mourn something that has not died. Still, the old pains, attachments, and desires that once meant so much to you need to be buried. You have to weep over your lost pain so that they can gradually leave you and you can become free to live fully in the new place without melancholy or home sickness.
“We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.”
- Romans 6: 6 - 8
Reflection Question: How can you enter your pain with the trust that you are already held in God’s love, so that you can mourn what is lost and live freely in the new place?
