Have you ever been hurt so badly until you felt
as if the wound would never heal? I don’t mean a physical pain, although
physical discomfort is usually the catalyst. The hurt I am talking about is a
mental pain, one that deeply pierces your heart with a throbbing of such
intensity until it makes you feel as if you will explode! That is the kind of
hurt I am talking about; the kind of hurt that makes you cry out in torture.
And all you want to know is , when does the hurt stop hurting?!
Imagine that you are a newlywed, embarking down
the road of marital bliss with the man whom you think will be your mate for
life. He is loving, pays so much attention to you, the proverbial “tall, dark
and handsome” and you are so looking forward to sharing your life with this
man. But there is a very, very dark side of him that you do not see until you
say “I do”. It doesn’t take long for that dark side to emerge.
Now imagine one day the both of you are watching
television, talking about the sitcom characters and you innocently call one of
them a punk. Nothing bad, just a simple not-so-horrible word; and all of a
sudden you find yourself drenched with a cold glass of milk that has been
thrown into your face. The milk is so cold until you can’t catch your breath
and the sudden shock of the icy liquid hitting your skin causes you to
convulse. You wonder where in the world that came from and what had you done to
deserve it. That is just that the beginning. The next time, you don’t agree
with something that he has said and suddenly you find yourself locked out of
the bedroom. You live with your grandparents, so you don’t want them to know
what is going on and you proceed to go and sit on the cold, damp basement steps
where your grandmother finds you. How do you explain what has happened? You don’t
of course, you just lie and say you locked yourself out of the room and your
husband is sleep. The first lie of many.
Then other little abuses begin to happen, a quick
slap in the face when you’ve “talked too much”. A swift push into a door when
you’ve “disobeyed” him. Several rights to the jaw; a kick in the behind that is
so forceful, you actually fall through the door, all because you forgot to
bring something from the grocery store. Oh yeah, there is the push down six
flights of stairs while your eight months pregnant. Then there’s the hard slam
into the car door because you refused to sit and listen to someone humiliate him!
There is the time you’re knocked down so much until you don’t even have the strength
to pick yourself up so you just lie there. There are the times that you find
out he is cheating on you; sometimes with women that you thought were your
friends. There are the countless times that you’ve stood in the middle to
absorb a blow meant for one of your children. Innocent little children who did
not understand why daddy hated them! And what about the many, many times you
tried to get away only to have your plans found out and been punished for being
“bad”. Then you were threatened with fatal harm if you ever tried it again. Or,
make that worse, your children were threatened. At this point, it stops becoming a physical pain but a mental hurt.
A hurt that makes you want to die, but you cannot stand the thought of leaving
your children to the care of him. You haven’t shared anything with your family.
You are terrified! The hurt intensifies as your situation becomes hopeless and
your feel your life, your spirit, just draining away. What do you do? What did
you do? When does the hurt stop hurting? You blame yourself because certainly
there has to been something that you did to induce the hurt. You were not a
good wife. You were not pretty enough, or smart enough, or did not satisfy him
in the many a ways a wife was supposed to. You were not spiritual enough. You
did not make a good impression on his family. You were just so inadequate in so
many ways until improvement was impossible. The hurt was unbearable and it just
would not stop! Your only solace is in the comfort of your prayers to the Lord.
It was decades that the abuse went gone on. Your children
have grown up, they are now self-sufficient. You don’t have to protect them
anymore, now they are protecting you. You don’t want them to be your protector.
You have a protector, the Almighty, the Omnipotent, the Greatest and now is the
time. You don’t take the abuse anymore. You don’t give in anymore. You find
that courage to finally issue an ultimatum…that marriage becomes history! You
don’t care that he has made a last ditch effort to belittle you and plummet
your self-esteem even lower than it already is. You try to look past the ugly
words he tosses at you as he laughs in your face: “You are ugly and fat and you
will never find anyone else!” You ignore it, but you are still left with the
hurt and it continues to hurt.
Now you are left to pick up the pieces and contend
with the hurt that others hurl at you; the biting, stinging words, spoken out
of ignorance. Things like, “I would have never stayed in that marriage”; “Just
one time and I would have been gone”; “It was your fault for staying”; “You
were the fool”, “I would not have given
him a second chance”…….yada, yada, yada…and all of this is fine and well. And
when you look back it, sure you stayed in the marriage too long. Perhaps you
should have left the first time. You were just married, you were confused, for
a long time you blamed yourself. However, none of those who had such wonderful “after
advice” lived your life; faced your threats; feared for their children’s world;
feared for their very own existence; or wanted to go to a corner, curl up in a
ball and quietly die. But whatever the truth, no one had the right to judge
you! Whatever the truth, nothing gave him the right to be abusive…to feel that
it was okay to physically and mentally hurt someone whom he stood in front of
people and God and swore he would love and cherish until death did them part.
No one has that right…No One! So when does the hurt stop hurting?
It never stops hurting. But when you are a Christian,
when you are in the family of Christ, through His love you find a way to look
past the hurt. When it becomes the proverbial monkey on your back, as it most
certainly will from time to time, you know that you have the unfailing love of the
One who will never hurt you! “For he will
deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence; he
will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his
faithfulness is a shield and buckler”. Psalm 91:3-4.You think of so many
verses to show how much God cares for you, even though you did not see at the
time you begin the realize how much the Lord actually brought you through! “God is our refuge and
strength, a very present help in trouble”. Psalm 9:9. He has always been your refuge, always been your strength,
your stronghold. He has always heard your prayers and knew your tears “For
he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he
has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him”.
Psalm 22:24
No, the hurt never
stops hurting but the Lord’s promises are indeed true! “Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with
me; your rod and your staff, they comfort”. Psalm 23:4 And there will come
a time when you feel the hurt less, and when that little monkey decides to scuttle on back as I told you he
will, your Father will be there to send him right on back where he came from; just wait on Him. Praise
be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, The Father of compassion and
the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can
comfort those in any trouble”. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4a The hurt never stops
hurting and the Lord never stops loving us and will never leave us to hurt
alone. Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."
Hebrews13:5.
No comments:
Post a Comment