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(Mary) What do you do with the hurt? None of us escape some kind of emotional pain—some hurt, and whether it’s a slight offense or some deep, ingrained trauma that we’ve experienced, we have to decide what we’re going to do with that hurt. That’s really important because it determines whether you’re going to let it harm you endlessly or you’re going to put it behind you somehow and move on.
(Julie) But don’t you think that sometimes we feel like we have no choice; what else can we do with that hurt? You can’t just pretend it never happened.
(Alice) And you can’t wipe it out of your memory, no matter how hard you try. It just keeps bubbling up inside your head and your heart.
(Julie) It does. You might go a day or a week or maybe longer without thinking about it, and then something happens that seems to start the hurt all over again. So, what do you do with the hurt? That’s a good question for today.
(Mary) It is a good question, so let’s see if we can come up with some biblical answers. First, let me ask: What is the most common way people deal with hurt?
(Alice) My guess is that the most common way most people deal with hurt is to harbor it, to blame others, to relive it time and again.
(Mary) No doubt that is true. And that hurt—whether small or large—can become so all-consuming that it begins to define who you are. I remember a person I knew many years ago who chose to see herself as the person who had been wronged by everyone in her life. Her hurt became her identity, and in her mind she always saw herself as a victim. That was who she was—and you didn’t have to be around her long before she communicated that in some way or another. Interestingly, because her hurt was her identity, she made herself a victim of everyone in her life, even those of us who were genuinely trying to help her.
(Julie) Yes, I’ve known people like that, too, and of course they are the ones who lose in such situations. It seems that they continually heap all kinds of hurt on themselves.
(Alice) And the more they talk about their hurt, the larger it grows, and they seem to live in sadness and pain because they harbor the hurt.
(Mary) I’m wondering if others feel like this. They have hung on to some hurts for a very long time, thereby heaping unhappiness on their heads. We certainly don’t get any revenge on our offenders by hanging on to hurt feelings. If you think that a pity-party will relieve some of your hurt, think again! Pity parties are addictive, as well as pitiful! The more you feel sorry for yourself and harbor those hurt feelings, the more you will try to find comfort in your self-pity. It can be a vicious cycle, and of course, it only makes matters worse.
Years ago God began to reveal to me how hooked I was on pity parties. And what came as a major revelation to me was that God sees it as a sin. Whether or not I have a legitimate complaint, wallowing in self-pity, nurturing my hurt feelings was not what a mature Christian should do. I wanted to grow up in Christ, to become more like Jesus, and I began to see how wrong and silly it was for me to insist on my pity parties.
I well remember the night I came home from work with my feelings hurt—again—by my insensitive boss. I was nurturing those hurt feelings by going over in my mind his hurtful words, what I wished I had said to him, what I would say to him someday, how unfair he was, ad infinitum. Instead of doing something productive, I plopped down to waste an evening by throwing another pity party, and pity parties are indeed pitiful since no one ever comes and there is nothing to celebrate.
As I began to indulge myself by feeling sorry for myself, I stopped and thought, I don’t want to feel sorry for myself. I don’t want to be miserable. I will not throw a pity party tonight. And with that I got busy, put those hurt feelings behind me, and got over it! It was a major turning point for me, as I began to learn that I didn’t have to hold onto those hurt feelings. I could, by a set of my will with the power of God’s Spirit, get over it.
(Julie) But of course, those hurt feelings can come back again and again. You think you put it behind you—and maybe you did—and then there it is again.
(Mary) So, what do we do with the hurt? It’s all about what you’re thinking about. The hurt continues to be painful because you continue to think about it. If you can learn to bring those hurtful thoughts into captivity and make them obedient to Christ, as we are admonished to do in 2 Corinthians 10:5, then you will begin to find freedom from the hurt.
(Julie) And Philippians 4:8 tells us to think of things that are a good report. Usually when our feelings have been hurt, we are thinking about some bad report. It has helped me greatly to tell myself over and over again, when I’m tempted to dwell on some hurt, “Stop thinking about the bad reports. Think about some good reports.”
(Alice) Think of something good that happened recently. Think of someone who loves you. Think of the wonderful truth that as a Christ-follower, you are loved by Jesus Christ and nothing can separate you from his love.
(Mary) It’s all in our thought patterns, isn’t it? So, if you want to get rid of the hurt, the first thing you have to do is to make the decision to let it go. And that means, you have to carefully guard your thought life and refuse to let your thoughts go to that hurtful place. When you begin to dwell on the hurt, talk out loud to yourself and say, “Stop it. I’m not going there. I choose to dwell on some good reports.” Let me assure you that you can change your thought patterns, by God’s grace and with his help, if you truly determine to do it.
(Julie) You also need to confess whatever responsibility you may have in this hurt. I find that when I’m hurt, even if most of the responsibility is not mine, there’s usually some part I’ve played which contributed to the hurt. So, I have to get that out, confess it, and acknowledge it to myself and to God that I’m not totally innocent.
(Alice) You know, when you try to cover up or deny any responsibility you may have, it will just allow it to stay alive within you and continue to cause you great harm. But it’s not easy to do that, especially when you feel you’ve been done a real injustice.
(Mary) It’s important to get beyond seeing yourself as a victim. You know, being a victim can actually feel good for a time. Don’t you think we can become addicted to our pity parties? It’s that feeling of “it’s me against the world,” and I have a right to be hurt! But you’re fighting ghosts when you do that, and those ghosts don’t really care and they certainly can’t help you get past your hurt feelings.
(Julie) Of course, that doesn’t mean that your hurt feelings don’t matter. We don’t mean to make light of the hurt you’ve experienced. But when you allow your feelings to override all else and control you, you put yourself in the victim seat and that is a terrible place to be.
(Alice) You have to start taking responsibility for your feelings, recognizing that you have choices every day and every moment of every day to decide how you’re going to feel.
(Julie) Paul wrote to the Philippians that they should “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice (Philippians 4:4). It’s a choice you can make and the good news is, as a believer in Jesus Christ, you have power far above your own to give you the victory in this battle.
(Mary) I’ve discovered that a very important thing to do to put hurt behind me is simply to get busy doing something constructive. Don’t just sit there; do something! This is one time you need to get involved in constructive activity that will take your mind off of your hurt feelings and shut down that pity party. A friend of mine tells me that her great-grandmother would frequently say to her, “If you have time to feel sorry for yourself, then you don’t have enough chores to do.” As she puts it, “It is more difficult to ‘wear your feelings on your shirt sleeve’ when you’re ‘rolling up your shirt sleeves’ and serving others.”
I’ve learned that my most vulnerable times of harboring hurt feelings are at night, in the dark, when I can’t sleep. (And the reason I can’t sleep is probably because I’m harboring hurt feelings—it’s a catch 22!) My thoughts can go so wild and uncontrollable at those times because I relive the hurt, exaggerate it, imagine bad things happening, and keep myself in bondage to hurt. I’ve learned to simply get up and get busy, if I can’t go back to sleep, so that my mind isn’t allowed to stay in that bad place. Good honest work, doing something productive, is a great antidote for hurt feelings. Even cleaning the house or doing the laundry can help!
(Alice) But what about the times when you really need to confront the person who hurt you. Sometimes we need to confront the person who caused the hurt.
(Mary) Yes, but if you confront in anger, or when you’re emotional, you usually make a mess of it. So, here’s a good suggestion: Write down on a piece of paper or type into your computer exactly what is bothering you, how you have been hurt, and what you would like to say to that person. Then put that in a safe place for two days, and during those two days pray about what God would have you do.
After two days get the paper out or open it up, re-read it, and ask for God’s wisdom. If you still believe you should go to that person and settle this thing, then decide how to tell the truth in love, make sure you’re not acting in anger or just self-interest, and then go to them at an appropriate time.
If you’re not willing to do that, or it no longer seems that important, tear up that piece of paper or delete it from your computer and say to the Lord, “I’m putting this behind me; it is in the past and you will take care of it from this point on. I will, by your grace, get over it.” The worst thing you can do is to keep brooding about it. Either do something or get over it.
Let me hasten to say that I know this is hard, and sometimes you need help and counsel from others to be willing to let go of your pain. You know, when you’ve held onto your hurt for a long time, it’s almost like it becomes an old friend. It feels justified and we think it would be wrong to just let it go. But nobody’s life should be defined by pain. It can’t become your identity. As a Christ-follower, you need to replace that victim identity with the truth that you’re a child of God, loved by God, and nothing can separate you from his love.
I recognize that those may just sound like words to you, but I want to encourage you to believe you can have victory over the past hurts of your life, whether they are gigantic or incidental. It is a choice you make every day, whether you are going to hang on to the pain or let go of it and through the power of God’s Spirit, begin to find healing from the pain.
Here is one of my favorite passages from Isaiah 61:
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion—to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.