Pandora's Box- Unleash Hope Into Your Life

People who state they enjoy being alone are not what they profess. They are alone “because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.” -- Jodi Picoult

It is in scary movies. It is in our everyday life. Inquiring minds want to know. One simple word entices it more; no. It rises from the unknown grave and it is called curiosity. Curiosity can be the key that open’s Pandora’s Box. Pandora is part of the Greek Mythology of a beautiful bride that received a box from Zeus as a wedding gift. The box came with a key and a note attached that read: “DO NOT OPEN.” 

We have an expression in our culture… "curiosity kills the cat".  For some reason the untouchable seems enticing to be touchable. Curiosity seems to get the best of us at times; just like Pandora and her box. It began to eat at her like leprosy. She took the key and she gave in. She opened the box.  Her actions unleashed tragic self-harm like guilt, shame and pain from mistakes and she closed the box. 

 “They gave Pandora a box. Prometheus begged her not to open it. She opened it. Every evil to which human flesh is heir came out of it. The last thing to come out of the box was hope. It flew away.” ― Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake

I had worked at Kmart as a manager, when I was laid off in 2001. It was an overwhelming responsibility to have five managers under you and employees that looked to you for your leadership. It was my turn to manage the store and I happened to be walking through the store and noticed a small boy about the age of 10. 

I was curious and observed him from a distance as he was contemplating, then looking both ways he hid something under his shirt. Walking over to him, he noticed I was very tall, and he had a scared look on his face. “Where are your parents?”, I asked. Replying in a shaken voice, “I am here with my grandmother.” As soon as he replied his grandmother came around the corner. I began to talk and …….. 

See curiosity pulls us in. I bet your wondering what I did next and how it ended. You could stop reading, but would you know the ending? Maybe ... I won’t tell you and maybe... I will tell you at the end of this blog in order for you to capture the essence of what I am trying to convey. 

Remain curious about who you are. Push yourself to do things outside the box. To develop healthy relationships you have to release the hope that is still trapped in your Pandora Box. Hope will heal the unleashed “tragedies” within your life. Face life with joy and don't hide behind the curtain of hurt.

 “Love is a panda in Pandora’s box. But don’t open it, because it took me forever to get it inside.” ― Jarod Kintz, Love quotes for the ages. And the ageless sages.

You don’t want to move into a new relationship because you are afraid of getting hurt. You don’t want to change because you are afraid of being hurt. You don’t want to go to somewhere new because you are afraid of being judged and people will treat you differently. You don’t want to go to church because they will look down on you. 

You have trapped all these memories in your own “Pandora Box”, but you haven’t unleashed hope. Place healthy boundaries of hope in your life, so that you can live life to the fullest and without the fear of being hurt. This is the “oven mitten” you place on your emotional state from getting burnt.

First, take a couple of steps back and evaluate the situation. Are you upset because you have been taken advantage of?  Use hope and figure out maybe it is an old thought pattern that has chained you to think the worse. Decide if this new situation has merit and maybe you were not taken advantage of because your expectation wasn’t met. 

Second, list ways to release negative feelings you have by writing them out. Kill irrational thoughts and which thoughts are over reactions due to past experiences. Can you take a baby step and at least test the waters? It may not be as bad as you once thought. Give hope a chance.

Finally, look to see if you have repetitious patterns. Are you in the same type of relationship repeating patterns of unhealthy cycles? Is it impacting your self-esteem, your mood and well-being? Patterns can be learned in childhood and you can break the cycle and manage this compulsive behavior. No wonder you become afraid of getting hurt. It wasn’t them, it was you and the choices you were making were self-harming. It stopped you from living the life that Christ called you to live.

"For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you."-- Isaiah 41:13

Acknowledge there will be challenges in your negative thoughts that could reappear. For women it may look like frustration because you are getting dressed to go out to dinner and you do not like how you are looking in the mirror. Step back. Look at the situation. Have you been hurt in the past because someone said something about your looks? Second, change your thoughts to a positive thought: “I am beating myself up because I am nervous due to past experiences.” 

Finally, acknowledge your thoughts and don’t fight them. Time to take control over your mind and relax and develop the confidence you look great and if there are rejections, then it wasn’t you. It was the other person not accepting you as the whole. The dress doesn’t make you! 

Grandmother asked, “What is going on?” I explained to her that he had hid something under his shirt. You can see the bulge where he stuck it in his pants and under his shirt. He gently pulled it out and it was a match box car. I could have unleashed Pandora’s Box of tyranny of hopelessness. Instead, I released hope. 

We talked about his consequences. I explained that sometimes if you ask for things you may get them. I offered grandmother a dollar and said this one is on me. Grandmother was in tears expressed it is hard for her to buy things for her grandson. He knows better and they both apologized. 

Pandora went against the box’s instructions of “do not open” and unleashed hurt upon herself. She heard the small voice inside the box that said, “Release me.” Pandora opened the box and hope healed all the pain she suffered. Isn’t it time to release hope out of the box and begin the journey to heal. If you become afraid of being hurt, then ask yourself, have you released hope to help you conquer the fears you have? 

Life begins with hope, develops into faith and then into an everlasting love. Love doesn’t take into account the wrong it has been done to them. Love allows forgiveness to seem as if it was seventy times seven. Love is wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove. Begin forging your faith on the anvil of perfection. You already opened the box once and you experienced pain in your life due to vulnerability.  This time open it again and allow hope to restore you. 

  

 By Faith, 

When It Hurts - Oh the heartache

 We take a risk when we open our hearts because the truth is, if we open our hearts, we will get hurt. You can't open your heart and not have some hurt because you're in a human experience. Even if it's the love of your life and you have many wonderful, deepening, growing, powerful years together, it's a human experience and that person will pass over. Love takes courage. Be courageous.~Mary Manin Morrissey 

One word; then several flow after it like a running river. The words become like bullets, which strike the heart. The heart is pierced. The pain flows throughout the soul like cancer. The hurt seems nonstop. The throbbing thoughts pulsating and arousing the emotional well of feelings has been tapped by a foreign object.

One event is like a shot gun blast. Every miniscule fragment seems to find its intended target. The heart is struck. Thoughts and feelings like an ocean’s tide drawn by the moon begin to rise. 

You can see it in their eyes; a small rain drop, swelling in the eye like a river overflowing its banks. Then, a tear drop falls slowly and gracefully down the cheek. Is it a sign of weakness?

A mom came and sat down in my office and broke down crying over her boys. “I don’t want my boys to see me upset and me crying” she said. “They don’t need to know how much I am hurting and I have to be strong for them.” I handed her a tissue and she continued with her story. Her son came into the room and wondered what was wrong. Encouraged by the bonding, I gave him a gentle nudge and said, “It is okay; mom loves you.”

One small arm went around her neck. I nodded at her and said to her son, “It’s okay to hug and love your mom.” Both arms wrapped around her neck and no dam could have held back those tears from both of them that day. I was touched by the reunion of a family that was broken by severe abuse.

You’ve been there and sometimes it is a relentless moment. Your tears release the pain so deep within you, which it is hard to bear. You carried a child for nine months and in the breath of the moment of birth, the child lies motionless and there is nothing anyone can do to bring your child back. Tears flow.

Your significant other comes to you with a concerned look. “I can’t do this anymore.” The hand grenade has been delivered. The fragments of those words explode in the mind. Shocked and left numb; it begins to hurt. Thomas Merton stated, "The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt."

Pain. It hurts. Some run from it because it hurts. Some don’t want to deal with it and bury it deep within them. They don’t realize it comes back as depression.  I can’t tell you that the pain you feel will disappear or is never to return. Christians do more harm when they say, “You’ll get past this” or “this too shall pass”, although they mean well, it’s not how you feel at the moment.


Pain is a characteristic of life.  Not everyone has an answer at the present moment. It is hard to step outside of the present moment and look toward what the future may hold. We all run into mortals, who are at different stages in their lives and it is hard to know or meet someone at the same level as you.

How did I get over the pain of finding out I had cancer, a family member’s death, divorce, and painful relationships?  I had hope in trusting my Creator who has a redeeming power to overcome such daunting pain. 

First, understand you’re not alone and do not attempt to try heal alone or find ways to release the pain by seclusion, self-harm or substance abuse. There are people who do love and are concerned about you, even when you feel they don’t. Second cling to hope. If you learn to deal with the pain and cling to hope there is joy around the corner and the healing progress begins. 

For some they relish in the pain because that is all they know. They begin unhealthy dating or marriage relationships because they are accustomed to the familiar of those types of relationships and have not learned how to accept a loving relationship.

Pain is predictable. Love is not. Taking the focus off the problem and the moment of pain, my eyes had to see something different. Talking to close friends was helpful. Having a support group of people who believe in you and can gently walk you through the pain helped the healing process.

Denial is the splinter that digs deep into the heart of the wounded soul. Refusing to acknowledge or avoiding the situation by minimizing the consequences causes the pain to increase. How do you remove such a splinter and heal from the pain?

A final comfort that is small, but not cold: The heart is the only broken instrument that works.~T. E. Kalem

When it hurts, examine what you fear. Write out the experience and identify your beliefs about the situation. Allow yourself to express your feelings and let the tears flow. Emotional pain is a debilitating pain that is not like physical pain. The only way to get rid of the pain is to delve into it.

Making friends with pain seems irrational. Yet, it is healthy way of accepting it and not being afraid of relationships. Think of releasing the pain as a breathing technique. When you breathe in you feel the pain in your heart and when you breathe out you release the suffering from the pain. Breathe in when you feel that is good about you and breathe out the negative thoughts that you are not good enough. 

Don’t be afraid that nothing will change. Begin to shift your focus and understanding that you will be okay. Embrace love even though it seems unpredictable. I had to embrace it and it seemed my pain was not intense. Remember, all the hurt you are feeling is trying to save you from being harmed. The purpose is for us to grow from what we have experienced.

Understand the meaning of hurt. Understand your pain. Once you begin to understand the cause of the pain the more you can grow and less the pain can become. Work with the hurt. There is a hidden message. Learn to ask yourself what you want that is better. Finally, don’t take things personally: by acting constructively, by dealing with the pain, and not destructively by lashing out or ignoring the pain.

Words of wisdom from when it hurts: Are you looking forward in order to understand what to do next, rather than looking back and analyzing who or what to attribute to your hurt?  Sometimes being on His anvil can hurt, but the end result is His redeeming love for us.

The surest way to hurt yourself is to give up on love, just because it didn't work out the first time.~Amanda Howells, The Summer of Skinny Dipping

By Faith -forging attitude in trusting Him