Our Hurts

Emotional hurts are as inevitable as having a rock hit our windshield while driving down the highway of life. When the hurt happens, we have two choices. We can investigate the damage, or ignore the incident all together. Either choice has its consequences.

Frankly, when I hear that awful sound of a rock hitting my windshield, I don’t want to pull over and take a look because once I see the damage, then I know it will cost me time and money to take care of it. 

On the other hand, if I don’t assess the damage and instead, ignore it, I will soon find my windshield filled with a web of cracks and fractures obscuring my view.  

The longer I wait to fix the damage, the more damage there is to fix. 

Recently, while I was driving down the road with a friend, we heard the sickening sound of a rock hitting the windshield. It hit the passenger side and my friend pointed to where she thought she saw a rock chip.

Later, I had my windshield inspected for the damage and the service man showed me that it wasn’t a rock chip after all.  It was just a dead bug’s body, its smashed head resembling a rock chip. Nothing that a little Windex wouldn’t take care of. I was relieved and happy at the same time. I had been willing to deal with the damage and the damage wasn’t even there. 

Sometimes our emotional hurts are similar to a “dead bug” incident. They are small, modest misunderstandings. Upon close inspection, we realize it’s not really a fracture. Instead, it is an easy fix. We wipe it off, smooth it over and move on.

Then, there are the larger longer lasting hurts; the death of a loved one, long term silence between family or friends, or a breach of trust. 

Investigating these hurts is much harder. We’d like to ignore them because we know they will take time, effort and commitment to figure out. Not only that, we may find that there is nothing that we can do to “fix” the situation. Instead, we are left to wait, to remain open and receptive to any opportunity that may arise that helps us to regain what we lost or to heal from what was lost. 

Why Bother?

Why bother to investigate our hurts? Inspecting our hurts we can take care of them sooner than later. Disregarding them we may soon find our lives infiltrated with the many tributaries of bitterness. The longer we wait, the more damage there is to fix.

P.S.  I wrote the story of my journey to forgiveness for those who, like me, know they need to change, but are not quite sure how to change. You can find A Heart’s Journey To Forgiveness at Redemption Press and Amazon.