A message to the hurt from someone who’s been there

This is possibly one of the most important articles I’ve ever written.  From a heart that knows what it’s like to be hurt, I write this to anyone, justified in their hurt, frustrated that they can’t move on, frustrated that they can’t get justice, stuck in a world of hurt... for any reason... for anyone who would relate.

Particularly for those who have been relationally hurt—betrayed.

The first thing I need to say is I know how you feel.  And I know how long it can take to resolve those feelings.  It can take years.  It took me years.  Five years at least.

But the thing I learned that I couldn’t have learned any other way is there’s a purpose being stuck in our hurt.  There really is.  I know from a theological aspect, I’d ‘gotten’ forgiveness back nearly twenty years ago.  It’s like the season of life I really thought, “Gee, I’ve really had all my anger healed; I’ll never have a problem with anger ever again.”

I think God will allow us to believe such lies for a while so we can rue them later.

From a counselling perspective, I’m so glad I’ve had to learn the hard way around anger, hurt, and forgiveness.  I’m glad because my journey of not being able to overcome it had me in the prime position of God showing me a new thing—a thing I couldn’t in my strength or power ever have procured.

I want to say to the person who is still angry, hurt, frustrated, confused, triggered... you are not alone.  What you’re dealing with is common to just about everyone.  We’re best to try not to judge ourselves, just as we should understand it when we occasionally flip into judging others who’ve hurt us—not that doing this helps, mind you.

But it does help to know that being hurt causes us to flip-flop from being angry toward the perpetrator to being self-condemning and back and forth unto exhaustion at times.

There are so many things we actually learn in the boggy mire of hurt.  Provided we try to understand it.  None of what we endure in the messiness of the anger and the guilt and even the shame is ever wasted.  It can all be redeemed.

When we’re right there in the hurt, it’s good to imagine that one day we could feel vastly different to how we do now.  That’s the nature of transformation, and we all undergo transformative experiences.

When the time comes for the light of perspective to break through, it seems we’re more than ready to “move on,” having arrived at a place where a new normal is more palatable than the darkness we’ve been through, a great hope dawns.

It’s worth forgiving.  It’s worth reminding ourselves that if one deserves mercy, all deserve mercy, for the acts of everyone are seen by the same Almighty God.  It’s better by far to have been the betrayed than the betrayer.  And how much better when we step out of God’s way and refuse any longer to discharge the divine duty?

That is not to say that we’re ‘there’ yet.  I definitely understand.  Any of this could be a trigger.

When we finally arrive at a point we never thought we’d ever arrive at, we can see the miracle in it, and from this perspective we see the wisdom in the humility of it.

We all yearn for freedom from every bondage, or at least we should.  Why do we keep on going back to our messy places?  Because we feel self-justified, and it feels right, and we can always justify such behaviour with a plethora of evidence.

But it doesn’t help us live freely and it affects us in many ways, including those who are close to us, and we’re good to nobody and good for nobody when we’re set in a cynical way of being.

I expect this will be tough reading for some.  Don’t forget I’ve been there, and for long enough that I never thought I’d get through it to be honest.  There were times I’d lost hope that I’d recover.  These were the times I was triggered for hours of frustrated ranting because of all the felt injustice of it all.

It never did me or anyone else close to me any good.  It only produced harm.

There’s wisdom in recovery, in finding our way out of a place we can only see injustice from.

When all we can see is injustice, we become cynical and skewed, and it leads to a nowhere land that is its own source of futility.

It’s understandable when we’ve endured travesties to want justice.  But part of justice is that we, ourselves, as survivors would have access to the justice of freedom.  Often it’s a case of accepting what we cannot change.

Tough as this might be to read and absorb for some, I hope it’s life and hope ultimately.

Hard-endured lessons produce hard-won wisdom.