Life is hard, real hard.

Today at church Mars Hill the pastor was talking about pain. It is an interesting topic pain. A topic that not to many people like to talk about let alone listen to someone talking about. There were so many things in the sermon today that ran true with me and I am sure with others as well.
As I sit here drinking my coffee and typing on my mac it is easy for me to just forget that there is pain in my life and to ignore that there is even pain in the world. If I take time to think about the pain in my life and in the world, which I should I would see that there is a lot. For example, last week in Seattle a girl went missing on the way to school Missing Girl and still is not found. This is a tragic story that breaks my heart every time I think about it. The problem is that I don't think about it very often.
There is also the pain of war, injustice, poverty, abuse, etc. The thing that I got to thinking about today is the pain in my own life. If I stop to think about the pain in my own life it gets very overwhelming. My family back in Winnipeg is hurting every day as they feel the rejection that came with my dad leaving, there are relationship issues here that are hard, I am sure I could go on. Life is hard.
The thing that the pastor was talking about today is "what do we do when life get's hard? Do we lean into Jesus, or do we self medicate?" The reason that I am blogging this here is because it is something that we all deal with every day, pain. I want to encourage us all to stop self medicating, stop running away or ignoring our own pain and the pain of others, but to bring them to Jesus. Jesus knows and feels our pain. It say's that he was Tempted in every way and that he knows and understands our sufferings and hurts, as he suffered and was hurting often. Turn to Him, the author and perfector of our faith, He wants to be our help.