| | I was listening to the radio some as I drove to various errands and events yesterday. Something came on - some motivational encouragement of the day type thing - and though I can't quote it word for word here this morning, it went something like this:
"It may be someones heart and actions of self-centeredness that hurt you, but it's your own self-absorbtion that keeps that hurt alive."
What a powerful little (maybe really big?) nugget of truth.
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I have a tendency to pull back from relationships/people that are self-centered. Who doesn't? Often times (according to many a Proverb) it's the wise thing to do. But pulling back and looking for a safe place or protection from the relationship doesn't take away the hurt.
Hurt is real. It can't be denied or ignored, or even pushed out of the way and not dealt with properly. Hurt is something that can resurface. We're human and we are weak. Hurt gives us great need for God to make us strong in our weakness.
If the self-centered person continues to be a consistent person in your life, that hurt can be a wound that is often re-opened, a scab pulled off - a wound hard to heal, one that leaves a scar. Sometimes we wonder if the hurt will ever leave - or maybe if the person would leave, the hurt might heal faster, quicker, easier?
From experiences of hurt in my own life, I couldn't be in more agreement with the quote I heard on the radio. The self-centeredness of the person who hurts us is wrong. We can't do anything about that. We can't change people. We can't make them feel sorry. We can't give them hearts of gold, repentance, sorrow for their actions. Not going to happen.
But we are responsible for our own self-absorbtion. Self-absorbtion dwells on the hurt and the people who have done the hurting instead of taking our eyes off of how we feel and resting our eyes upon Jesus.
I'm not trying to minimize the hurts we go through - they are often deep, sometimes lifelong, and though healing is possible with God, there are scars, consequences and relationships lost because of the selfishness of others and their lack of either seeing their actions as selfish, or their lack of a heart change. Restoration is not always possible and hurt is not something that can disappear with some magical prayer.
I do believe though that hurts are prolonged and we hinder healing when we are self-absorbed. Through the last few years God has been showing me that I am to take my hurts to Him, be real before Him with them - experience His tender mercy and compassion, His arms around me - and then focus on others and get my mind set on things above and not that which happens to me down here on earth.
Hurt has taken on a purpose. Selfish people have too. Both have consistently taken me back to my Source of Strength (God) and allowed me to experience His love (and understand the GREATNESS of His love) in a way I could never have known if I hadn't encountered hurt and selfish people.
When selfish people hurt us and we are self-absorbed. . . we will only become weaker, distracted individuals who will not know or experience the depth of God's compassion and love to its fullest. We won't know how to give that love out to others and we will keep our hurts alive and growing. The sufferings we encounter in these types of relationships have the great and wonderful potential of driving us closer to God and revealing to us our own selfishness.
(Of course this doesn't mean we go looking for selfish people to be in relationships with so we can grow - No worries, they will always find us on their own - they are apart of life!)
Being God-focused and others-focused can give healing to hurts that would otherwise consume more thinking and time then ever should be allowed or is healthy physically, emotionally and spiritually.
I journal this today not because I have this down. Not because I have a long history of putting this into action. I'm not ever posting to teach or preach. That's just not me and I don't have the credentials for it.  I am a work in process and a slow learner.
I write because this is where I am RIGHT NOW in my life. This is the real me.
This is the real yuck that's there and needs to be removed. This is what I need to learn more of. He is revealing to me my own self-absorbtion that has caused hurts to be prolonged and inward, personal healing to be jeopardized.
It's exciting to know that though I can't erase the past, I can't poof certain selfish relationships out of my life, I can't make myself into some super-power human hero who never gets hurt. . . I can take my own self-absorbtion to God and be washed and restored by His power so that my focus is on others (and there are plenty of wonderful little children around here to focus on!) and off of what has taken place or how I feel.
This is exciting! It's visionary. And it's heart healing.
Self-absorbtion keeps hurts alive and thriving. God-others-focused helps heal hurts and allows us to experience His love and move on in our lives with vision and strength.
A. Ann
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| | Posted 7/29/2011 10:06 AM - 2609 Views - 36 eProps - 27 comments
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