Can't Stop the Pain

Several years ago, I broke my ankle at Hawaiian Falls. How I broke my ankle is horrifically embarrassing, and I will only tell close friends the actual story. Following the incident, I thought I was ok, even though I could hardly walk on it. The bottom line is that I'm cheap: I didn't want to pay money to go to the ER, and I didn't want to have to pay for a doctor's visit just for them to tell me everything is fine. Except it wasn't fine. Over the next few weeks, the pain increased, and I knew something was definitely wrong. By the time I finally went to the doctor, I was told that a piece of my ankle bone had chipped off, and it had already started to fuse back together incorrectly. The only way to fix it was to have surgery. That was a big "nope" from me. There was no way I was paying money for surgery to fix a tiny chip on my ankle, and even then, there was no guarantee I would ever be pain-free.

This physically painful incident taught me much more than to just go ahead and go to the ER when I hurt myself. The lingering pain and the aches I feel when the weather changes taught me about what happens to us when we ignore not just our physical pain, but our emotional pain as well. When we hurt ourselves physically, we understand that there will be pain. We know that we need to go see a doctor and get stitches, bones set, or we may even need surgery. We understand that there is a healing process we must undertake to make our bodies whole again.

In the summer of '99, I nearly cut my left index finger off at the first knuckle joint. I immediately went to the ER (this time!) to get stitches. The pain of the lidocaine needle was worse than the steak knife that sliced through my tissue and tendons. I remember writhing in pain when the doctor crammed that needle into my wound. However, I understood this additional pain as part of the healing process. I didn't want to have to get the stitches--or the eventual surgery--but I wanted to be healed and put back together more than the ensuing pain. I had to endure the needle, the surgery, the rehab, so that I would heal properly. If I refused to take any of these steps, I would never regain the proper use of my index finger.

We understand the pain and healing process with our physical bodies, but most of us will do anything and everything to avoid the pain of emotional healing. Why should it be any different? When we experience emotional pain, we want it to go away at all costs. We turn to the bottle. We turn to pills. We turn to sex. We turn to porn. We turn to food. We turn to our phones. All of those things give us instant gratification--it makes us feel better in the moment. Each one of these things helps us take our minds off the emotional pain we are experiencing. Why in the world do we not think to go to the ER and the Doctor when we experience emotional pain? Stripping our hurts down to the bone is gut-wrenching--just like setting a broken bone. But we would all be more than willing to get a broken bone set. How many people would actually say, "Nah, Doc. I think I'll just let my tibia stay outside my shin the rest of my life. I can just cover it up with my pants, and it will feel better eventually"? That would be ludicrous.

The bottom line is that when we get hurt, it hurts even more to be healed. We have to be willing to feel the secondary hurt in order to heal. If we face our emotional pain in the same way we face our physical pain, imagine the healing that could take place in our souls! Our thought process must change from, "I'm hurt, so I want to feel better," to, "This is going to hurt to dig out all the pain, but it will be worth it so I can heal and actually be better." When we go to the Lord as our emotional doctor, and the Bible as our emotional ER, then we are able to be fully healed. When Isaiah writes in Isaiah 53:5 that "by His wounds, we are healed," why do we think it's only our physical healing? God is our Jehovah Rapha--the God who heals--there isn't a caveat that says "Sorry, only physical healing." He can heal anything--physical or emotional. So let Him, because we can't stop the pain on our own.

Forgiveness

One of the hardest things Jesus ever asked us to do was to forgive those who have hurt us. In our minds, we say, "He hurt me, so he should feel the same pain I am feeling right now." In our human capacity of thinking and feeling, vengeance only seems natural. However, that's not what Jesus did, and that's not grace.

When our enemies hurt us, I feel it is slightly easier to forgive. We expect our enemies to hurt us--we don't like one another, so it stands to reason that we would hurt one another. The need for vengeance is still there, but we can allow ourselves to forgive them just a little bit easier. What's much more difficult is when those whom we love hurt us. We expect so much more from the ones we love. They have given us unspoken promises just by saying the words, "I love you." Inherent in those three little words are so much more: "I will protect you," "I will be faithful to you," "I will think about your needs above my own." When we truly love someone, their hurt is our hurt.

Sometimes when we are aggrieved by those we love, it's completely unintentional. When our loved ones hurt us unintentionally, it's much easier to forgive. In addition, their level of contrition has a direct correlation with our ability to forgive quickly. To take it even a step further, when our loved ones hurt us unintentionally, we sometimes need to examine ourselves--our expectations, our demands, our attitudes--to see if what they said or did should have even hurt us in the first place.

Mikayla made a flippant comment the other day about my weight--a sensitive topic for any woman. It cut to the quick, and emotion quickly rose to my eyes. I looked at her and asked how she could say something like that. Tears welled in her eyes as she realized that her comment was not funny, but hurtful. She immediately apologized and asked for forgiveness. Her brokenness at hurting me endeared her to me even more. It took .087 seconds to forgive her as she climbed into my lap, and I honestly don't even remember the words she said.

Mikayla's immediate compunction made it so easy to forgive her, especially since I knew she didn't mean to hurt me in the first place. But when our loved ones hurt us intentionally, that's when the sting of betrayal, disloyalty and dishonesty hits us the hardest. Sometimes it's not that our loved ones are hurting us on purpose, but the hurt is the unintentional consequences of their intentional actions.

For example, my college boyfriend cheated on me with my best friend, who was also my roommate at the time. I don't believe he really intentionally sought out my best friend in order to just hurt me. He intentionally sought her out, but because of his selfishness and lack of love for me, the unintended consequences of his behavior crushed me. Conversely, my ex-husband hurt me many times intentionally. Because of his own brokenness, hurts and need to be loved, he would intentionally say things he knew would deeply wound me. At times, he took great pleasure in causing me emotional pain.

Both of these hurts--intentional hurt and the unintentional consequences of intentional actions are the most difficult to forgive. Forgiveness means that you no longer hold that person responsible for what they did to you. It means that you can release them from their actions, and can no longer be hurt by these actions. Many times, we think we have forgiven, only to be reminded of what that person did. We are then confronted with the anger, hurt and frustration all over again. "I thought I had forgiven him?" we ask ourselves. I know I did. I still do. I know that I have forgiven my ex-boyfriend, as I no longer must see him or deal with him. My ex-husband, however, we must still co-parent our children. I am constantly reminded of the things he did or said. He continues to do and say horrific things to me; he slings accusations; he falsely attacks my character. I have to forgive him not only of those new sins against me, but all of the old hurts and wounds that those new accusations bring back to my mind.

In Matthew 18:21, Peter asks Jesus how many times we are supposed to forgive. Verse 22 says, "Jesus answered, 'I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven.'" That's just ridiculous. Do the math on that one--does Jesus literally mean we are supposed to forgive someone 490 times?

What I've learned over the past five years since my divorce is that forgiveness is a process. It's not a one-time occurrence--sometimes it might take 490 times to forgive someone for one offense. The Bible tells us that enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy. One of the easiest ways to destroy us is to keep us in bitterness and anger toward other people. Bitterness will eat away at our souls, and it will destroy us from the inside out. In Galatians 5:19-21, anger, discord and dissension are listed right beside sexual immorality, drunkenness and idolatry as sins that will cause lives to be destroyed and an inability to inherit the kingdom of God. Hebrews 12:14-15 tells us to "Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many." This tells us that we have to be able to get rid of bitterness in order to see the Lord. That's some heavy stuff--I won't be able to be holy or see the Lord if I'm still bitter toward someone? That's a sure-fire way that the enemy can keep me from fulfilling my God-given purpose: keep me bitter.

I have forgiven my ex-husband, and I have to keep forgiving him every day. Every time that I am reminded of something he did or said to me, I have to forgive him all over again. Every time I forgive him for the same grievance, it gets easier and easier. I've probably maxed out that 490 Jesus commanded us to forgive. But I have to walk in forgiveness. I have to choose forgiveness. Every day.