Stab Wounds

Every one of us have endured some form of pain in our life, whether through abuse, neglect, our life not working out like what we thought it would, and many other ways. Our reaction and response to that pain makes us want to reach out and hurt others. Hurting people hurt people. While going through the abuse in my life, I would try to get even and hurt the ones who were hurting me. Somehow, I always ended up getting hurt even more.

Jesus has had to teach me about not responding out of anger, hate and bitterness. As I was thinking about this journey with God and the hurt in my life, it made me start to think about the pain we cause others. Not just in cases of abuse alone, but just in everyday life too.

We injure one another and leave stab wounds with our mouth. I’m talking about when we “jab” or “poke” one another, even our friends and loved ones with comments that may temporarily make us feel better but unfortunately is at the expense of others. We wound others, either because of abuse in our lives or because we are having a bad day. We do it to get back at others, we even jab complete strangers. Many times, we jab at or poke others because we don’t know how to process our own pain and hurt.

Sometimes we know what we are angry about and sometimes we don’t. We hurt others when we feel they don’t care about us or because they have hurt us. We do it knowingly and on purpose. Sometimes we do it without realizing it. We get our feelings hurt and want to take it out on somebody else.

God had told me to be good to someone who was abusing me. Instead, I would try to get even and only end up getting hurt that much more. I couldn’t understand why God would tell me I had to be nice to someone who was going out of their way to deliberately hurt me.  But when we act like those who are mistreating us, it makes us like them. That isn’t what God wants us to do.

And talk about unfair, not only did God tell me to stop acting like them, He gave me this Scripture: Job 16:3 (KJV); Shall vain words have an end? or what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest?. (NIV) “Will your long winded speeches never end? What ails you that you keep on arguing?”

God was trying to get me to understand that acting like the one who caused me pain, was not, and is not, the answer. Two wrongs don’t make a right. It only makes me to be just like them. It’s hard to understand when we are being abused and mistreated, especially as a child. And even as we get older. But at some point, we have a choice to make. We can continue acting like those who hurt us, or we can be set free by “growing up”, by following God’s example and by doing what He tells us in His Word.

When Jesus was beaten and crucified for us, do you realize the Bible says that He opened not His mouth? When He was physically beaten, He did not respond. And yet He had the power to do so. He had the power to totally defeat those who were slapping and hitting Him and spitting in His face. His power is far above the power of any, and yet He stood there because He was going to the Cross to defeat the works of the devil and to reconcile us to Him.  

It was hard to forgive those who had abused me and left me broken with so many problems. But as God worked in me, eventually He made me to understand that I am not of the kingdom of darkness. I am not Satan’s child. I belong to the Most High God. He has made me in His image. By choosing to forgive them, it opened the door to make me free. It has totally changed my life. God created us to be in His image. He didn’t intend for us to choose to act like the devil.

1 John 4:7 KJV: Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

1 John 1;5-7; 5 This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

Being made in God’s image doesn’t mean we are automatically like him. We were made from the dust of the ground and we live in a fallen world. It is not easy doing good to those who have hurt us, but we are also sometimes the ones who are doing the hurting. We must deliberately choose to be like God. Is trying to get even with somebody else worth losing our salvation over? We can learn to take our pain to God, even if sometimes we might need to go off somewhere and scream at the top of our lungs, very, very loudly. Besides, one day each of us are going to stand before God to be judged for what we have said and done.

Looking back over my life and what it used to be like, and what God has made it to be now, is like night and day. Jesus healed the big, gaping wound of bitterness that had festered inside of me. It took time and was one of the hardest times of my life, but now, I wouldn’t trade it for anything in this world. I have learned that I belong to Jesus. He loves me, even when people in this world don’t.

Do you know what it means to be a child of God? It makes all the difference in the world. The bitterness and hate and hurt and all that anger is shoved back into the devil’s face as we can now become a new creature in Christ. AMEN!!! And thank you Jesus!!!