No one will ever understand how my heart physically hurts when the ache comes flooding in at night. I'll never find sufficient words to describe the pain I feel in the deepest part of me, where only the strongest of emotions are felt. Others may relate, or empathize, but they will never comprehend. Personal pain is as unique as our fingerprints. Imagining that this would be easier if someone, anyone, could grasp what I'm going through is nothing more than a lie I tell myself.

I believe God was telling the truth when He said He understands. But it doesn't make me feel less lonely in the hurt. Maybe it should. Maybe it doesn't because I lack faith. I don't know.

But if the knowledge that God understands my heartache doesn't make me feel unalone, then I guess knowing that a friend gets it wouldn't either.

Why do I like to pretend it would?

Maybe because it gives me license to focus more on what people can't grasp, can't help me carry, than on what they actually can. Maybe it's just another layer of self-protection I've built around my heart---a hesitancy to let people in on my personal pain because "they won't get it anyway".

But suffering done in silence is the most excruciating, because loneliness magnifies pain. I know.

I'm the tree falling in the forest.

And I want someone around to hear me.