I found myself asking God, “Why do you allow, pain?” I wished that I could say, that I heard an audible answer, ,but I didn’t. Instead, I think the answer comes in a million little ways… Pieces of a puzzle that once put together gives us a better list of potential answers. Sadly there doesn’t seem to be a quota, that once reached we become exempt from feeling it…
While there are a million reasons why people do what they do… why they strike out, adding pain to the lives of others and ultimately themselves… But, if I had to break it down.. I have learned, and am in the process of learning, that hurt people, hurt people.
For those of us who want to be the change, we want to see in the world.. this should be the best reason to heal ourselves from the pain that is dolled out… either at the hands of others, or by our own doing. But ,few of us are willing to do the work that often times requires us, to own our part in the pain…. Whether it being, trusting the wrong people with our dreams, or ignoring the warning signs, or not owning our actions or lack of action.
All to often, it is way to easy to recoil, when struck, and in our recoiled position we lament about all their wicked ways… ( which may be the case), but rarely do we sit with ourselves and try to figure out what the lessons for us, should be, and then take the time to forgive the things we could have done differently.
Love isn’t for the cowards. There will be pain involved. We will trust the wrong people, but the upside is… that it is through the process of love, that we weed out the good from the bad. That we learn valuable lessons about how we can move more gracefully through life, and how to KNOW that we can trust ourselves with whatever the outcome is….. Pain -heart pain – can be a gift if we are willing to let it do it’s work. If we are willing to not stay in the anger and the victimization of it. It can come as a teacher, to show us just how resistant we truly are. It can erase the lies, that whisper, “we arent enough”, if we chose to focus on those who love is well, rather then those who do not.. cannot … or choose not to. And, it can move us into solid relationships with others who have experienced it and still choose love.
There is a season for sitting with the pain. I am convinced we have to sit with it, to feel it, to own it, before we can learn from it and release it.
I have determined that I never want those bad friendships to determine my will to always put myself out there to the possibility of new ones. When I look at the total sum of my life and the amazing people that God has given to me to walk this life… to focus on the less then a handful of “duds” is insane.
I have watched a couple of my friends go through this as of late….. and, in the watching, the praying over their tender broken hearts, I think I can hear God Whisper… “this, my child is why I don’t spare you pain…For how could you see it in others if I did?” I know that God doesn’t want any of us to suffer at the hands of another. To see us heart broken, our wings broken, and unable to soar…. but, HE knows it will happen….and we can choose who that will make us, in the end.
If we choose to stay broken… They win. If we choose to stay hurt…. we continue the cycle of “hurt people, hurt people.” I refuse to be a wounded anything.. We cannot always predict who others will eventually show themselves to be, but we can determine who we will be no matter what…. I have grieved friendships, jobs, family, I have felt pain that I literally would take my breath away.. and yet, it didn’t. I have sat in a darkened room with my heart in my hand unwilling and unable to to conceive the next beat.. and yet, it does. I have held myself in my own arms crying, thinking the tears will never stop….but they do.
If it is true.. and I believe that it is… that hurt people hurt people.. then is it possible that is is also true that healed people, heal people. I want to be one of the healed. That is the path I choose.
I have learned that you cannot wait for the apology to come, hurt people aren’t aware of their part in the pain… whatever it is that you wanted or needed from them, you need to find away to give it to yourself. So many people I love stand at the same cross-road that I find myself… Good people, wounded.. needing to make a decision as to what road they will take. The majority of us will pull on our boots and begin to heal…. some will stay in the arena of hurt people…
While I cannot say that I am thankful for the pain… I can say that I am grateful that God doesn’t let the pain go to waste- and that whatever the dream we entrusted with someone who failed us, he doesn’t leave those there in their care and keeping… The dreams that he gives us, the promises he has whispered in our hearts are ours.. the only power that is left is that in which we give over.
It is a cycle that we can choose to break… the choice is ours. we can use our pain to hurt people or to heal people… this is what my pain in teaching me.
A Cowgirl Called 