No one likes to deal with emotional and spiritual wounds. They kind of get in the way of our belief that “we are just fine.” They bring us face to face with the truth that others are not to blame. We have to take responsibility for our part of the situation. Honestly, it is no one’s fault if we are not happy. I remember that at one point on my journey God spoke these words: Linda, if you can get over yourself, no one else will bother you. I sat quietly…a woman of many words…had nothing to say. All I could do was to stir that soup for a while. No one can take away our choices of how to respond.
Our wounds serve to reveal truth to us. In this way, they are a gift. I did not say that they are comfortable and pretty. Our wounds are really a type of being offered on man’s altar of ignorance. That is why Jesus could say, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” Some people may be flat out mean and evil. I want to be charitable and say the words of Jesus over them, too. Better for me to pray this over them and leave the consequence up to the Lord. In the case of one of my abusers in childhood, I am not sure that these words did much good. He was evil. However, I am going to leave that with God.
Our wounds can bring us wisdom that gives us freedom. I think that we all collect wounds. These wounds hurt the heart emotionally, spiritually, and eventually physically. The Bible says “from the heart flow the issues of life.” I think wounds create death. In the western world we have externalized everything. We are more comfortable being victims of the external wounding and then endeavoring to fix it all through some man-centered work. To go to the heart of the matter is just in the last twenty or so years surfacing in the western mind. The Bible has some amazing things to say about it, and one of the things it says is: the power of life and death is in the tongue.
Our wounds teach us lessons in security. Too often our security is in the externals. When that lets us down, we are face to face with a truth that we gave away a lot of power to the things and people of this world. This world is a mess of wounded people expecting others to make it better for them. It just is not going to happen in the long run. Short term, we may experience some success in getting security in the things of the world—even from people. Long term, this programming will eventually reveal itself for what is it—a dysfunctional belief that continues to wound.
Our wounds can lead us to our greatest victories. What wonderful grace this is! When we let others off the hook and turn our eyes to God, we are in the most secure position possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment