The Metaphorical boxes

The metaphorical box

35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.”36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” Mark 4:35-41
In every home there is a box. A metaphorical box. A box where we stick all of our pain, our grief, our losses inside  before placing the lid on our box.  We are told to walk away from our box of pain and join the rest of the crowd on the joy side of life.  When we try to carry our metaphorical box with us to the joy side we are often reminded to leave our box behind.

As much as we humanly try most of us cannot leave our pain and suffering behind. Feeling trapped by a society that encourages us not to talk about our pain, we are forced to live silently wondering about the feelings of sadness that is festering inside us. Some of us may see a Psychiatrist who will quickly note these symptoms we are having as depression and write a prescription for medication to treat our condition without necessarily recognizing the pain that is their metaphorical box.  Instead of letting the pain and suffering out of our metaphorical box we are encouraged to put the box away, preferably way back in some unknown closet somewhere we cannot find it.

Teaching our young people how to process their feelings of disappointment, pain, sorrow, grief and loss is every bit as important in life as teaching them the academic subjects. The academic subjects are important, but it is the feelings from grief, loss, disappointment , pain can can potentially derail their life and career journey.  Helping your young person being better equipped to handle this pain begins begins by asking them questions about their pain.  When your young person comes to you and says 'I am sad' don't just give them a cookie as though it will make them all happy again.  When we do so we are teaching our kids to put their pain, hurts, losses into their pretty looking metaphorical box and go have a cookie so they will feel better about themselves. All that will do is set them up for a life time journey of unhealthy eating whenever feelings of  sadness overwhelms them.   Instead, get down to their eye level and silently help them process that pain into words. Helping them to recognize that pain within them by giving them permission to talk about it is one step away from helping them to be successful in life.

Finally, I love word pictures. Especially word pictures in the bible. In one picture Jesus is walking on water toward his disciples who are in a fishing boat being tossed in the stormy sea. Fearful, one of the men calls to Jesus. who at the time was on the shore. These men knew they were in a dangerous situation when the waves were in danger of capsizing their boat.  It wasn't appropriate for them to put their fears, pain, sorrow into their metaphorical box and so they cried out their emotions so they could be heard. Just as Jesus calmed the storm in their life he will do the same for us if we cry out our feelings of sadness, fear and disappointment. 

If we can learn to talk about our pain, suffering, our sorrows instead of hiding them away in a metaphorical box we will  have learned a wonderful survival skill in life.