Skip to main content

What to do when someone hurts you?

Image
By design#860
The agave plant is beautiful. It grows in hot, dry climates mostly in the southwest.  Close to home, we might be acquainted with it as a sweetener.  The agave has many other beneficial uses, but it is also poisonous and can lead to problems if it punctures the skin. 

 Aren't we the same?  We possess both the bitter and the sweet. The poison that can pierce a heart and the ability to speak sweetly and convey love. Beautiful and ugly, good and bad. Each quality resides in all of of us.   

 What do we do when we've been hurt by someone we love?  Strike back with our own woundedness? Run? Retreat? Shut down? That's what I tend to do. I nurse my wound and feel sorry and angry at the same time. It's not a healthy place to be. In my head, I believe I have to figure it out on my own. And in that place, I usually remain stuck. Only until my heart starts to listen to the nudges of the Holy Spirit, do I stand a chance to make progress. 

 And so I have to run.  Not away from my hurt, but into the arms of my Creator. The arms of the one who understands pain and hurt. The one who can help me understand the wounded places that cause me to react the way I do.  It is in this space that I can find healing. If I choose to rest, listen, and receive then healing can begin. This is where I get encouragement.  In the arms of God. 


Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and God of all encouragement,  who encourages us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God.  For as Christ’s sufferings overflow to us, so through Christ does our encouragement also overflow.
2 Corinthians 1:3‭-‬5 


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Everybody Loves a Good Fight

By
I’ve gotten into two fights in my life.  I know, hard to believe.  But I can remember them clearly.  One was with Cathy, who lived two doors down from my grandmother’s house.  I was probably around 8 or 9 years old.  Cathy was mean and a thorn in my side.  She was also the only other kid on the block who I could play with.  I don’t know exactly how the fight started, but I can remember the final scene and how it all played out.  I towered over her as she lay on the grass, pinned in a helpless position.  She cried for mercy and I let her go.  She flew home and that was the last time she bullied me.  The other time was in sixth grade.  I was friends with Rosie; at least I thought I was.  She accused me of breaking her compass and told me that she was going to beat me up after school.  I was shaking in my boots the rest of the school day.  I wondered how I could avoid the ordeal.  I wished I had someone that co...
3 comments
Read more

Opposite Directions

By
It was nice and toasty in my house.   And the tear that just leaked from my eye turned ice cold as I pulled the door shut behind me.   I couldn’t help it.   I had an emotional wrestling match with my better half the night before, and it left me feeling fragile.   This happens in marriage and relationships, right?   How is it that I can be standing right next to my husband and yet feel so alone?   I had to make a choice.   I prayed and wondered how to proceed.   Would I be able to verbalize my thoughts?   Would I be able to lay down the anger I felt it my heart?   I had to work backwards.      I’ve learned enough to know that the anger is the blanket that covers all the other feelings.   Don’t we like to stay under the blanket?   It’s kind of comfortable and it keeps us distant so we don’t have to deal with the truths that lead us there.   So I had to start uncovering, and   I found rejection...
2 comments
Read more

Help, I'm a new mom again!

By
Have you ever re-visited something in your mind, over and over again, hoping to rehearse an upcoming conversation, or maybe correct one?  I find that happens to me as I sometimes put my foot in my mouth when I speak with one of my kids.  I find myself bumbling through a conversation and when I hang up I wonder, “Why did I say that?”  I blame it on the awkwardness of talking on a cell phone, the distance in miles that limits a heartfelt conversation, or just my inability to remember I was once their age.    Thankfully, my sister helped me put things in perspective.  I’m not their mother anymore…in a sense.  I’m not here to give advice, unless they ask.  I’m here to be a companion in their journey.  To hold on very loosely so they can experience their lives, just like I had to.  I don’t think my parents had much insight into what I was experiencing when I was 25 or 30.  They were living their lives.  And so am I, but I w...
2 comments
Read more