Love hurts, love scars
Love wounds and marks any heart
Not tough or strong enough
To take a lot of pain, take a lot of pain
Love is like a cloud, holds a lot of rain
Love hurts, ooh, ooh, love hurts. – Nazareth

A man tells me of a pornography addiction that has escalated into group sex with strangers and random sexual encounters with men. I listen and pray with him for weeks and months; I give him Biblical wisdom about such things, and I meet with him as long as he is willing.

A woman has an affair with a co-worker, and the husband finds out. My wife and I spend hours, days, and weeks meeting with them. I get calls and texts in the middle of the night for months from one or both of them because their hearts are on fire with pain and betrayal.  We pray, listen, and give counsel from the Bible. We declare to them both that we will walk with them to a marriage of restoration. They stay married.

A man comes to faith in Jesus, I baptize him, and I spend hours drinking coffee and teaching him the basics of the Christian life. We pray together, we talk, and we walk together for months and then years. He grows and grows in his understanding of the faith.

Two young couples with their kids come to church and declare that they have found the church for which they have been looking all their lives. We pray together and enfold them into places of service within the Church. Their children grow and learn about Jesus.

Another family joins the fellowship and begins to serve in the church. I met the man for coffee hours, and yet he and his wife drift apart, and he begins dating a married woman, so I ask him to take some time off from serving in the church until he settles his marital status. I pray with him and show him the scriptures’ teachings on divorce.

A man who is addicted to pornography comes to me and asks if I can help him. I say I will help him until his soul is fully restored. I pray with him and show him what the Bible says about lust and intimacy. We met weekly for months.

A recovering alcoholic and I meet for coffee and great conversations about life, Rock and Roll music, and Jesus.

A woman and her daughter begin coming to our Church and breathe a sigh of relief at finding a safe place from which they can recover from a toxic church relationship. They are enfolded deeper and deeper into the Church and begin to serve. The younger woman was having difficulty getting pregnant. So, we pray and pray and pray for the couple to conceive and give birth to a healthy baby. We pray that the husband begins to attend Church. He begins coming and is faithful to come even when his wife is too ill with morning sickness. He begins to serve in the Church. A healthy baby is born to this lovely family.

A middle-aged couple begins attending and starts serving at the Church. I visit them in their home. We have them in our home. We pray with them.

A single mother and her daughter attend and serve. I go to her place of employment with the horrible news that her father has suddenly died. I carried her in my arms to her car and drove her home. My wife and I pray with her and care for her.

A man comes to church for years without his wife and daughter. He serves faithfully in a vital place of ministry at the Church.

A couple comes to our home to share several meals, she sings on the worship team, and at one point, the husband tells his wife I am a fake Christian.

And now I must stop. For the tears are flowing and the pain is deep. In eighteen months, they all left my previous church. Some attend other churches, prettier and sexier churches. Others just don’t go to church anymore.

But I know their names.

When I was a young man, Anwar Sadat was Egypt’s president. He was in the news a lot due to the complications of the Arab and Israeli conflict. He had a small dark spot high on his forehead. I asked my father what that was, and he said it was a prayer bruise. Said that Sadat knelt and faced Mecca five times every single day and touched his forehead to the ground in prayer to Allah. It was a bruise that never went away because of his devotion.

The longer I live and the more I care for the souls of pastors, the more I have come to believe that pastors who are faithful to the people in their communities are going to have bruises on their hearts. Those bruises will come from criticisms, misunderstandings, betrayals, and sometimes the meanness that sheep have towards their shepherds.

But what do we do? We pray for those who take from us and then leave.

We pray.

Read this from the late John O’Donohue,

For the Priesthood

May the blessings released through your hands
Cause windows to open in darkened minds.

May the sufferings your calling brings
Be but winter before the spring.

May the companionship of your doubt
Restore what your beliefs leave out.

May the secret hungers of your heart
Harvest from emptiness its sacred fruit.

May your solitude be a voyage
Into the wilderness and wonder of God.

May your words have the prophetic edge
To enable the heart to hear itself.

May the silence where your calling dwells
Foster your freedom in all you do and feel.

May you find words full of divine warmth
To clothe the dying in the language of dawn.

May the slow light of the Eucharist
Be a sure shelter around your future.

Living with a bruised heart is not the same as living with a broken heart. When my heart is broken, I spend some time with a licensed Christian counselor. But when my heart is bruised, I find a life-giving friend (or friends) and share what’s going on in my heart.

And then I spend some time on my knees so that I can get back on my feet.

For I am a pastor.