“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” Matthew 6:14 (NIV)
Are you stuck in life, always thinking about who hurt you and how they hurt you? Reliving the pain each day.
You know, the moments of…..
This is all your fault!
You knew I couldn’t handle this but you did it anyway!
I am like this because of you!
You always hurt me!
I trusted you!
Why did you treat me this way?
I will never get past this!
You knew this would hurt me!
Will I ever trust anyone again?
I am messed up now for rest of my life because of you!
All moments dealing with emotional pain from deep, deep hurt…. brought on by another.
The kind of pain that runs so deep, it leads to all sorts of physical, mental, and spiritual set-backs. It makes you want to get in a fetal position on your bed and cry your eyes out until your face is swollen and red…. never wanting to come out of your room again and see another soul. You want to remain in despair…. all by yourself…. until you finally become numb…. and then you start to believe there is no hope left in the world.
I’ve experienced this pain. It is agonizing, all the way down to the marrow of your bones! Very dark and lonely.
For each additional minute I would give in to pondering on the hurtful memory, my mind would just take me there quicker and quicker. The replay button seemed to never stop. The hurt was being engraved into my mind.
There is medical terminology to explain this but I am no doctor, so I am going to shortcut it for you. You have rewired your mind to think about the pain continuously. You are still stuck right in the thick of it even though time is passing by. All the while, your heart is becoming calloused more everyday from the pain of holding on to that grievous moment.
The only way to describe your state now is…. STUCK.
You are allowing everything you come into contact with, trigger the pain. This is because we associate our emotions to smells, locations, people, food, holidays…. and the list goes on and on.
You have let yourself think about the pain for so, so long…. everything you come into contact with, reminds you of the pain.
So you may ask, “What do you do to stop the exhausting reminders?”
I realized that the earth was still spinning, time was passing by, and I needed to put my hurt at the feet of Jesus. It was time to take captive all those triggers that made my mind go back to the pain. My mind needed rewiring.
But how does one rewire?
For me…..
I tried new foods. Took a different route to work. Colored like I was in kindergarten again. Put lots of puzzles together.
Talked to a counselor. Saw a medical doctor.
Read my Bible more. Prayed more.
All of these things helped Band-Aid the pain at surface level, but not one of them healed the wound.
“So what did heal the wound?” you may ask.
Well simply put, healing came when I chose to forgive. That simple.
You see, I had held hurt, anger, and bitterness so long from having an unforgiving heart, my heart was slowly becoming calloused. The sweet whispers from the Holy Spirit were fading away.
If I had only known beforehand…. that my unforgiving attitude was going to cause me great misery…. maybe I would have forgiven earlier. But I didn’t know. You cannot truly understand anything until you experience it for yourself. And God had allowed a great example of this poor attitude to manifest in my life.
The time did finally come where I wanted to be right with God again more than I wanted to hold on to the pain. Of course, choosing forgiveness did not make me well overnight, but forgiveness did put me back into relationship with Jesus.
The sweet whispers from the Holy Spirit began to be heard again. I could delight in God once again.
One cannot be right with God if you have sin in your heart. And not forgiving others is sinful.
If you are a Christian, please forgive the one that hurt you today. Jesus is waiting.
If you are not yet a Christian, ask Jesus into your heart. He is waiting for you.
Additional Truth:
“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?'” Matthew 18:32-33 (NIV)
Reflection:
Does forgiveness heal you overnight?
No. Jesus had a lot of work to do on my heart because it was so calloused. The peeling away of deadness was very painful. It leaves a heart sore and tender for a while. But oh my, how beautiful is the heart of a woman that Jesus has transformed!
If you have ever met a woman with a heart like Jesus, you know exactly what I am talking about. There is no other word to describe it, other than…. BEAUTIFUL!
God Bless!! Love you all!!
