Wounds open us up. They expose us to infection and death, or they open up a way to let infection out, do undo deep damage and heal hidden hurts. Wounding never feels good, but we should never forget that this world of ours is prefaced on tragedy and predicated on loss. The most innocent of us, our first parents, were cruelly tricked into selling their innocence and authority for an empty promise. What bitterness is set free to infect and do detriment to our humanity. We pass our own pain and harm from mother to child, generation after generation. We'd love to hold it in and protect the ones we love, but we can't help passing on what diseases destroy us.
I have found a deep wound in myself, one caused by lies whispered into my soul by the enemy of Love. I believed those lies innocently, tricked just as Eve was. What knowledge did I have to combat them? What strength did I have to resist? Even now, with 46 years' experience, I hardly know how to deal with my own delusions. But the Man of Sorrows calls me, holding out wounded palms. Though his commitment to Good is sometimes terrifying, I know that he has sweat and bled and wept, and I would go to him even with my shame and hurt.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend... (Proverbs 27:6)
Here I lay my tattered heart before him, and let him unwind the long, dark lies that have so weakened it. Here I will let him tell me truth to fight the lies and heal my hurt heart.
Lie #2
I will be abandoned.
I will be discarded and left, because I am too much and not enough. No one has the strength or the will to deal with my mess. I am alone, and I will always be alone, and I should not depend on anyone. My constant swinging between longing for belonging and then for freedom reveals my weakness and my defectiveness. I am a mess and a horror of a person, and I am too much to handle.
If I were lovable, people would care about me, but they can only pretend.
The Truth:
...for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. (Psalm 103:14)
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands... (Isaiah 49:15)
Everyone is full of their own pain, just like me, and there are a lot of loving people who are, like me, unaware of the hurts they bump up against in others. Some people have pain that they survived by denying emotion and shutting down connections. Their inability to connect with me is not because I am hideous but because they are wounded themselves. Responding to me would require them to deal with horrors within themselves that they don't have the ability to face.
Everyone gets left with unmet needs sometimes. Even where there is real, intentional, sincere love, people have so much to manage and we are shot through with failure. Loving well is an art and a discipline. It is HARD. Most of us have had some vital piece of ourselves damaged and we struggle to give and receive.
It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man… (Psalm 118:8)
Even my close friend whom I trusted, the one who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me. (Psalm 41:9)
I developed a defense for an unfair situation. But I need to learn how to override it without discounting it. I need to learn how to depend on people in ways that are fair to me and to them. We are all inherently un-dependable, because we have so many holes. But I can depend in pieces, for certain things. And there is One on whom I may fully rest the whole of my weary, bruised heart. Only the Man of Sorrows is worthy to bear that weight in its entirety. He knows what it is like to be betrayed and left alone in grief. He knows the pain of separation, of being let down and of letting others down. If he wounds, his wounds are faithful, and the wounds he gives bring about healing, not harm.
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