“I’ve been hurt!” Probably the most common statement that surfaces in any counseling session. It can mean you loved, trusted, placed confidence in, or otherwise left yourself open to a flawed human being who failed at measuring up to your expectation. It can also be a time or event in your life that through no fault of your own, like Job, life was cruel or at the least unfair.
Regardless of which type of hurt you are dealing with, one of the hardest ones to get past is when you never saw it coming, as it ransacked your emotions sending you into a deep funk from which you seemingly cannot emerge.
We turn to friends, confidants, even professionals to try and understand, or to sound out our feelings; or We may close out everyone, disappearing in solitary confinement to avoid the pain.
There is no doubt, we all have been hurt. Real Deal. Dead Stop. Life has been unfair. We have dealt with bitterness, we have laid blame, passed our hurt forward to others, bled on people that didn’t cut us, justifying our attitude and actions because of the hurt. As if being hurt gave us the right to be angry, rude, self-centered, and vindictive. It does not.
As Christians, we are called to a higher standard. I can and should choose a different path. To live in a continual season of hurt is something I have to choose to perpetuate. It is a daily ritual, a resurrection of circumstance that grasps our minds and refuses to let go.
I can’t do it anymore. I refuse to live another day locked up in someone else’s prison. Shall we compare hurts? Relive them and revive them to justify my countenance and demeanor? How long will I embrace the pain… until it eats me alive, until it robs me of all joy, and destroys anything good in my life? I simply refuse to give anyone or anything that much power over my life.
“Casting all my cares upon Him for He careth for me,” I am leaving it at the altar and refusing to pick it back up. I am realizing people are broken, with most of us trying to be the best version of ourselves we can be. I am realizing that no matter how bad I had it, there is someone who had it worse than I did.
Consider the Holocaust, they made it out of Auschwitz, survived horrendous atrocities, endured unimaginable evil, pulled themselves up by the bootstraps, and went forward. Choosing to live, they fell in love, married, had children, and enjoyed a full and satisfying life. Past experiences did not rob their expectations.
Anyone in the arena of life today has been hurt. But that hurt, that betrayal, that horrendous experience is not going to write the rest of your story. You are an overcomer, you are designed to prevail. Today I forgive. Today I get up. Today I move on. Today the hurt gets buried. Today I choose to live again.
Let’s look at Jesus, beaten beyond recognition, crowned with thorns, nailed to a cross, His side rivened by a spear, spilling water and blood across the millennials of time. With his last breath, he utters these words, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do”
The road back to living, back to normal begins with this one decision: I’m done letting this thing own me, I’m coming out of this. Running, walking, crawling, but I’m coming out of this!