The Photos That Hang on our Hearts

Karen broke up with me a week before our wedding. I had been living a wild and immoral lifestyle while trying to convince here I was a decent guy. Despite my efforts to hide it from her, she knew my friends, knew I was just like them, and saw through the façade.

When she broke off our marriage, I realized I was about to lose the only good thing I had going for me. It brought me to my knees before God. It was the moment I finally surrendered myself to His will.

Desperate, I begged Karen to reconsider, and she could tell something was different. She forgave me, even though I didn’t deserve it. I broke off ties with my immoral friends and she agreed to go through with the wedding. I promised her I would stay faithful to God—and to her—and she believed it.

When I see our wedding photo, I remember the turmoil of emotions that week. It reminds me of God’s love and faithfulness in the midst of my sin and rebellion, and of Karen’s grace toward me.

More than just a memory, that photo is like my own private stone marker. It symbolizes God’s goodness and the journey of faith He’s leading us both through.

We display photographs like our wedding picture because they are tiny bits of remembrance, snapped during a moment of happiness and captured for all time. We see them and remember the joy and emotion. These memories make us who we are, shaping our thoughts and guiding our lives.

God hardwired us to remember. That’s why photos affect us so deeply. They hang on our hearts as well as our walls.

But not all memories are good ones. Pain, disappointment, sadness, failure, even abuse and rejection—these moments impact our lives, too. They can be devastating to the heart and soul.

In my counseling office, I see so many people who struggle with addictions, depression, or other problems. No matter the situation, all of them end up describing a devastating event or circumstance from their past—abusive fathers, neglectful mothers, emotional trauma, broken marriages. Everyone deals with unresolved pain from our past.

Those are not the kinds of memories we want to hold onto. I’ve never seen a photo of a devastating car accident displayed on a living room shelf. And yet those memories do hang in the walls of our souls, taking up residence in a dark corner of our hearts.

I call this place the “hurt pocket.” It’s where unresolved pain goes to hide. In some cases, it hides and then begins to grow. The more space it fills, the more it compromises our mental, emotional, and spiritual health.

How do we find healing from these hurts? How do we remove them from our “hurt pocket” and expose them to the light of Christ? My newest book, When Life Hurts, discusses how we can resolve that pain and find freedom and inner peace.

My next few Marriage Builders will be adapted from the new book. I hope you’ll join me as we explore how to be set free from past pain…and live fully in the present.