It comes to us all, sometimes it’s physical, other times it’s emotional. It’s amazing how quickly we can move forward from physical pain, but it can take years to move forward from an emotional pain.
A stranger can wound us, but it’s whom we’ve come to trust that can do the real damage. Words have more power than most people give them credit for. And they can cut SO DEEP!
The only healing for this is forgiveness. Otherwise those words will not only wound once, but over and over and over. The wound will fester with bitterness, and like gangrene will spread. It gets ugly, fast. And before you know it, you’re a walking zombie of bitterness.
Have you ever been a walking zombie of bitterness? I know I have. I couldn’t say a loving word to save my life, I was CONSUMED by this venom. Soon it turned to anger and like a wounded animal I acted only out of defensiveness.
All because of words.
Someone I deeply respect said, “Words are like nails. They can be used to build someone up or to wound and tear a part.”
God had been wanting to get his healing hands on that wound for a while, but the gentleman that he is, he waited until I asked him to. It was the hard words of a prayer of forgiveness, of remembering the words that wounded and forgiving that have started the healing process.
The annoying thing with emotional wounds, they can be reopened. Unlike physical scar tissue that is tough, an emotional wound can be revisited and the pain rekindled in an instant.
The BEAUTY of forgiveness is that it helps you move forward faster, and the previous pain is duller. Bitterness doesn’t make anything better.
A total stranger told me something last week, “Stick with what you’re doing, love people. That’s what God’s asked us to do…How many times has God forgiven us? How many times will he forgive us?”
What are my words doing? What are your words doing? Are we building, or wounding?
My prayer for you is that you would know the freedom that come from forgiveness.
