You Don’t Have to Pretend This Didn’t Hurt

Somebody has probably already said “we just have to move on” to you in the last 24 hours.

And they’re not wrong. You do have to move on. The season continues. The next game is coming. You can’t stay in this forever.

But “just move on” can also be a way of skipping something that needs to be felt before it can be left behind. And athletes who skip the feeling often find it shows up later — in their confidence, in their relationships, in how they play the next game.

Read this passage slowly.

Let that sit for a second before you move.

The writer of Lamentations doesn’t skip the hard part. He names it precisely — affliction, wandering, bitterness, gall. My soul is downcast. That’s honest. That’s allowed.

And then: yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope. The hope doesn’t arrive by ignoring the pain. It arrives after the pain is named. The “yet” is doing a lot of work in that verse. It’s the turning point. But you can’t get to the “yet” without going through the honest naming first.

So here’s permission: this hurt. The blowout was hard in a specific way that deserves honest acknowledgment. You don’t have to have it together yet. You don’t have to be fired up and ready to go. You’re allowed to still be processing what happened.

And: there is a “yet” coming. The hope is real. The season is still going. This team is still intact. What happened doesn’t define what’s next.

Feel it. Name it. And then let the “yet” arrive in its own time.

This question invites emotional honesty. Hold the space for it. Don’t rush toward the positive after someone shares something real.