When we hurt, the pain is sometimes more than we can bear or handle well. At those times, sometimes we are tempted to hurt others as a way to heal ourselves. Like the bullies of our youth, sometimes we feel we can lift ourselves on the backs of others or hold ourselves up by making others low. However, there is no virtue in using the adversary's methods to achieve the Father's plan. I know it can be taxing and of long duration to wait to heal, but when we try to rush miracles, at best we get rotten miracles and sometimes we hurt ourselves more than if we just let it go. I know sometimes we are tempted to do this because people we love become our biggest antagonists, but even if they are agonists it does not have to be an adversarial relationship. The Christian thing is to let Christ handle it. That's not the common thing or the natural thing to do, at least as far as our wills are concerned, but ultimately it yields the best chance to heal.
These past few weeks, one of my friends has been counseling with me about how to handle his impending divorce. He wrote three different versions of his feelings to share with his wife: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Some of the things in the ugly letter are very scathing, even if they are true, and I can understand the temptation to lash out when wounded at the source of your pain. Wisely, this weekend, he told me that he sent an affirmative and peaceful version instead and let some of the things that wounded him stop there. There is no need to wound others in order to heal yourself. I remember while I was married how my ex wife would complain to her coworkers about me. I knew this because they all stared daggers at me when I would bring her lunch. As far as I know, they thought I was lower than pond scum. They were her friends, and they were supposed to be supportive, but you don't need to lay all of our problems at my feet.
Once someone tried to justify this behavior by telling me that healing, like surgery, sometimes starts with a cut. Well, even though that's true, the surgeon doesn't cut open someone else to heal you. The person in pain is the one cut open, not to cause extra damage, but to accelerate the chances for proper and lasting healing. Additionally, it's not the person who injured us who cuts us but a third party who is interested only in our recovery and the continuity of our life. The person who hurt us is not involved at all, because hurting them never can heal us.
That's the bully mentality. I suck, so if others suck more then I suck less which means I'm better than they are. On a relativity scale I suppose that holds some logic, but we're all still pretty much irrelevant on a galactic scale, and so all of these efforts are ephemeral and transitory at best. Bullies are never better people. They enlarge themselves by making others small. They don't spread happiness, they destroy it. When everyone is injured, that doesn't mean anyone is healthy. It just means that we're equal, which is not always a good thing.
For many months now, I've been waiting and praying and hoping for Christ to heal my heart. Other injustices arose and piled on top of the first, and I was tempted to lash out and bring others down. I realized that since nothing has actually harmed me that I am not justified in taking any action whatsoever. Just because others are advanced doesn't mean I am restricted. Just because I feel hurt doesn't mean it was on purpose. Even if it was, that doesn't justify me to take justice into my hands. I'm not qualified to be the dispensary of justice because I am not blind to emotions or passions or pleas or even people. I favor some over others, and I am not the choice to decide what anyone deserves. In truth, even when people tell me I deserve lofty and noble things, I am careful knowing that since I have sinned even an iota I deserve to be cast out of God's presence.
Ultimately there is only one way that hurt will heal. That hurt took place on the hillsides of Jerusalem as Jesus first suffered at Gethsemane and then was executed on Golgotha. Through His hurt we are healed. In chapter 53, Isaiah writes: "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." For this reason, it is through Christ that we are healed. We can't really do anything to hasten it or force it or make it happen. We must wait for Him to heal our hearts, to deliver on His promises, and to bestow on us His blessing. The things we do might make us feel better for a moment, but those hurts hurt us as well. The only Man ever hurt that heals another is when we allow Christ's atonement to make us whole again.
I don't pretend to be good at waiting. I don't pretend to be healed. I hurt a lot, and I shake my fist in the air and throw rocks in anger and pepper targets with lead in frustration waiting for God to make me whole. It's not the Master Physician's fault that I'm wounded. He wants to help me. Sometimes it hurts and sometimes it cuts, but I know that I can only heal correctly when He makes things right. Since I don't know enough about my own physical anatomy let alone the anatomy of my own peace, I trust in His masterful hand to suture shut such that I will heal and live again.
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