Jordan Mentz

Hurting People After They’ve Already Been Hurt 101

If I were to poke you with a needle, and it hurt would you believe me if I told you I was sorry while still holding it? What would keep me from poking you again? Nothing.
People get hurt a lot in today’s world, so much so that they seem to grow numb to the pain. If you are numb to the pain, and I poke you with something sharp the chances are very high you won’t feel it, but if I penetrate the skin there will still be a mark when the numbness wears off.
If you’re on the operating table and the doctor asks you if you want anesthesia before he goes to work or in the middle, you would probably be like are you crazy of course I want it before you start operating on me. You know that if you feel the initial poke, its going to hurt through out the remainder of the surgery. Numbing the pain, while you are still hurting may seem stupid, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that there was something that hurt you.
You are entitled to hurt, and you are entitled to grieve over the hurt you received. Why is it then that people have the perception that since they’ve been hurt so many times before it doesn’t matter if they get another poke? If you could stop yourself from hurting altogether, that would be nice but we all know that it’s impossible. We guard our hearts against things that we don’t trust to be safe. We let our guard down to let people know who we really are, only after we trust them enough to do so.
Pain I wish there was no such thing as that word but the reality is there will be pain until we get to heaven. Have you hurt yourself just so you could put a band-aid on the wound and then if I wanted to clean it, after you put the band-aid on it would you let me? Of course that seems absurd, you would want me to take the band-aid off and clean it. But how many times do we get hurt in life and rush to put anything on it to make it better. The real world doesn’t work the same way. When I was growing up, I trusted mom to clean it, put a band-aid on it and say “All better” and then I would go back to what I was doing forgetting about my scrape. Well it would be all better if it heals correctly, doesn’t get bumped and doesn’t get infected. Lots of times in life, we want a quick fix to our problems, and we are willing to do anything to make the bleeding stop. We just think about the band-aid approach, without being willing to clean it and protect it. Some times we do this in our hearts, and we forget that we need to tear the band-aid off so that we can let air get to it.
Healing is a process that is essential to living. We must heal, but sometimes we refuse to take the necessary steps to make sure that we have healed completely. Sometimes we just hate the pain that comes with healing, and we try to hide it. Hiding something doesn’t make it go away, nor does it heal while its being hidden. If we forget that we have a wound, for example if I scraped my knee, and it stopped hurting then I bump it on the table I feel the same hurt I felt when I got the wound. If you protect it with the band-aid, and are conscious of the fact that we have wounded we are generally more protective of it and will try to do anything to keep it from getting bumped. There are many times though, that we just hide the pain in our hearts and refuse to acknowledge that we have been hurt, and we want it to go away on its own. Thinking to ourselves that we’ve been hurt so many times before that we become numb and then the enemy tries to get us to start thinking “I deserved it” “I had it coming” and when we slip into that, it is extremely hard to let the wound heal and it becomes almost impossible to protect it. We think if we deserved it, why do I need to heal from it? Why do I need to make sure it heals? What’s the point? These are questions that are real, but not true.
We for some reason, shift from protecting our heart to wanting someone to love us for who we are no matter how much pain I have to deal with. Jesus is the only one who can provide this kind of healing. We become so annoyed with the circumstances, it’s like saying to yourself “Won’t my wound ever heal, and as you say that you peel off the scab that protects it.” This seems ridiculous put in that way, but a lot of times we get so desperate for what we think we want, that we idealize the person so that they fit in the box we want. When we start doing that, we not only let our guard more quickly but we often get caught up in the moment, and then BANG! That person you thought you could trust bumps your wound that you’ve tried to hide for so long. If you were to allow your wounds to heal completely, then would it really hurt as bad if it got bumped? I’ve noticed if I scrape my arm and I clean it, care for it, and allow for it to completely heal and I bump it again, I am like oh it healed. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt, but the truth is it does, but not as bad as if I hadn’t let it heal. There are so many quick fixes in the world, and we are so eager to use them, that when we need to heal we sometimes forget to take off the band-aid and re-clean it. We pour peroxide on the band-aid the world has given us, and get mad if it gets infected. Why do we want a wound to heal? So we can be whole. Jesus is fighting for our hearts, and when they are wounded we cannot see clearly everything God has in store for us.
God is the great physician and He is waiting to not only heal our hearts, but also He is prepared to clean the wound, teach us how to protect the wound while it heals while providing the proper care it needs. Why then do we try to fix our wounds, by trying to either hide them or pretend they don’t exist or we try to make excuses why we are hurting the way we are. God will not force his healing, you have to acknowledge that it did hurt, and invite him to come into those wounds so that he may clean them and begin the healing process.