One morning a few years ago, I arrived at work with a black eye. As I looked at it in the mirror that morning, trying, but failing, to cover it up – I had to smile. You see, I didn’t fall, no one hit me, at least not on purpose. The person who hurt me didn’t even know she did it. If she had known, it would have broken her heart.
You see, the day before, Breanne and I were working on some books. We have this little crimper that you have to use on the spiral bound books. We have two of them. I had one trying to get it to work right and Brailee, my little granddaughter, had the other one…helping us. She was small at the time.
Unfortunately, I raised up about the same time Brailee slung her arm out with the crimper in hand. It caught me right under the eye. Wow, it hurt. Breanne had a shocked look on her face. Brailee on the other hand, didn’t miss a beat, she just kept playing. She had no idea what she had done to hurt her Nana.
That next morning as I looked at that eye, my first thought was, “She didn’t even know she did it.” As I thought ran through my mind, the Lord began to talk to me and say, “This happens often in the church, someone gets hurt or offended and the other person doesn’t even know they did anything to hurt them. If they had known, they would not have done it.”
With age, I notice I am more merciful. I have had people; even recently really hurt my feelings by things they say. Yet, I know they don’t mean to hurt me in any way. You see I have come to realize that they are often speaking out of hurt, disappointment and things that have gone on in their life. They don’t mean to cause pain, but as we know, hurt people, hurt other people.
My goodness, when I look around the church, so many people are hurting.
They have been hurt in their past, they have been hurt by family or loved ones. Some have been hurt by great loss and disappointment. Some feel hurt because of rejection or abandonment. There are so many different reasons that people are hurting and that hurt, if left unresolved, can become toxic.
When it becomes toxic, that is the time that toxic words will be seen in their words and actions. The Bible says it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. If your heart is full of hurt, unforgiveness and anger, that is what will come out of your mouth. If your heart is full of bitterness, bitter words will come out of your mouth.
A few years ago, a friend told me that I had hurt her several years before, I didn’t even realize it. There was so much going on in my life at the time that I didn’t know I had hurt her so badly. It broke my heart to see it from her perspective, and I immediately ask her to forgive me. We are still good friends who talk all the time, and I am so glad she was able to tell me. We moved past it. I would never intentionally hurt someone and if it comes to my attention, I am quick to repent and ask for forgiveness.
Life changes people, either for the good or the bad. I have walked through some hard times in my life, many losses, they have been hard. But God walked through them with me. Those times did change me. I could have allowed them to cause me to be angry, hurt or bitter – but I did not. I chose another route. I chose to forgive and allow those times to soften my heart, not harden it. I was only able to do that because I stayed in the presence of God and allowed HIM alone to bring healing and hope to my heart.
If you are a person who has been hurt, please, please stay before God until he removes all the hurt and pain so that you can go on and live a happy and joy-filled in life.
If you are a person who has been hurt by someone else, ask God to reveal their heart to you. Perhaps they too have been hurt in life. Maybe they did not intend to hurt you and like my friend, they may not even realize they hurt you.
Friends, I am not saying it is okay to hurt people, and you should simply brush it off if you are hurt by someone, especially if it is intentional. But I am saying, look a little deeper, talk about it, try to fix it, see if they know they are hurting you.
Brailee hurt me badly enough to black my eye, but she didn’t know it. I hurt my friend deeply and I didn’t know it – perhaps they don’t know they are hurting you. Talk about it. Seek God about it and do what the Bible says,
“Pursue peace at all times.”
If you have any way of bringing peace, pursue peace – your life will be better for it.
