Daily Word of Grace # 96 (July 28, 2020)
On their 1992 album Automatic for the People REM has a comforting song called “Everybody Hurts” that goes right to the heart. Lead singer Michael Stipe sings, “When your day is long and the night, the night is yours alone. When you’re sure you’ve had enough of this life, well hang on. Don’t let yourself go, ‘cause everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes. Sometimes everything is wrong. Now it’s time to sing along. When your day is night alone, hold on, hold on. If you feel like letting go, hold on. If you think you’ve had too much of this life, well, hang on…you’re not alone.” Even though we are all aware that we are not alone dealing with the innumerable stressors of this pandemic, it can still feel that way. Hurt has a way of leaving people feeling isolated, alone—as Roy Orbison similarly sang in his 1960 hit “Only the Lonely”—“only the lonely know the way I feel tonight.” Both these songs remind us that although hurt leaves us feeling alone and lonely and wondering if anybody else on the planet truly understands what we’re going through, we are indeed not alone because everybody hurts. In his incarnation and earthly life Jesus Christ the Son of God, took our humanity upon himself (Philippians 2:6-7) and experienced not only the joys of our lives but also the hurts—even to the point of suffering and dying alone on a cross. And even now the Risen Jesus bears the scars to remind us that God understands that everybody hurts and that we are never ever alone—and regardless of our ability to “hang on”, God hangs onto us as well.
Love and Prayers,
Dave