Hurt.

Hurt.

We ALL go through hurts.  We ALL experience pain.  Unfortunately, in this life, we can’t avoid hurt!  We can’t avoid pain. It will happen, no matter how much we do our best to avoid it.  We are so blessed, and God is doing such an incredible work. I need to never forget that.  I have noticed, however, that sometimes our greatest fruitfulness comes through seasons of our greatest hurts.  This tells me that God truly is guiding it all and bringing the right fruit at the right time.

I’m a peacemaker and a people pleaser by nature.  I desperately want everyone in the room to be ok.  I want everyone to like me, and I want everyone to feel happy.  All. Of. The. Time.  A lofty goal that I’ve learned is absolutely impossible.  For starters, we are human beings.  Every one of us, myself included, fight our flesh.  We deal with pride, selfishness, insecurity, character, comparisons and more.

I was asked recently, “How are you ok that people have left your church?”  It was a blunt question, and in the early church plant years, would have been instantly answered with tears.  Because it does hurt.  It feels personal, and it is. Every pastor I know has & will go through this, but it’s not the hurt that defines us, but our response to it.

What are we supposed to do when it hurts?  When we feel betrayed by a friend, when we are disappointed with where a relationship did or did not lead.  When we are faced with an unforeseen situation. When we feel we have sacrificed 10 times more than the ones who bring the hurt and point the finger? Are we supposed to fight back?  Defend ourselves?  Hurt back?  Withdraw?  Our choices in the moments directly following a hurt will determine the imprint that the hurt has on us.

Here are three areas of hurt where our response can have a profound impact on our future.

Friendship Can Hurt.  Job experienced hell.  He lost everything – his children all died, his fortunes collapsed, his body was reduced to painful boils.  He was at rock bottom.  Instead of his close friends rallying to help and encourage him, they came with their wisdom to explain his errors and point out everything he had done wrong.  Hurt.  They misunderstood him, misrepresented him, and even accused him. In all of this, they betrayed him and betrayed their friendship.  They kicked him when he was down. The worst kind of friendship foul.  In my mind, Job had every reason to curse them. And yet in Job 42:10 we read,

“AFTER Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his property and doubled his previous possessions!”

Job prayed for the friends who hurt him!  That is not easy to do.  He CHOSE forgiveness.  He chose to bless when he could have cursed. And when he did, there was a turn-around in his own life. In praying for them, he released the Lord’s blessing in his own life.  Think about it!  Our hurt can release His blessing!  Depending, of course, on how we respond.

Disappointment Can Hurt. Like Job, maybe you feel kicked while you are down by those closest to you.  Could you experience any more disappointment?  I read a verse recently that has had such an impact on how I face hurt and disappointments.

Ecclesiastes 11:10 “Remove sorrow from your heart, and put away pain from your flesh.  Youth and prime of life are fleeting.”

I was replaying something hurtful in my mind recently, when the Lord said to me, “Donna, put it away.”  As if I was putting away laundry, or putting clean dishes back in the cupboard (which I admit is not a task I enjoy either).  The verse says, “Put away pain from your flesh.”  It says FLESH.  When we hold on to pain, it becomes joined with our flesh.  Our destiny demands that we do not let that happen. Our flesh would love to use this pain as ammunition to hurt others.  Our flesh would love to see the pain become the seed form of bitterness. We must remove hurt from our hearts, and put it away.  That means out of sight AND out of mind.  Delete the scene in your mind and refuse to go back to it.  Put it away! It’s not worth it to hang on to it.

Please do not misunderstand what I am saying.  I am not saying we should stuff our hurts and disappointments, or that we should block them out or not acknowledge them.  That would be unhealthy.  What I am saying comes from the Word. Once you have acknowledged it, given it to Jesus, and forgiven your offender, put it away.  Give it no opportunity to attach itself to your flesh, because that only leads to more hurt.

 Sacrifice Can Hurt.  Sacrifice by nature will hurt.  When we say to God, “I give you my heart, I give you all of me,” there will be a sacrifice in that.  When we moved to Denver, CO to plant the Pearl Church, that included sacrifice.  And it hurt deeply.  I felt it to the core of my being.  We walked away from everything we held dear.  We walked away from security, friendships and longevity of relationships, as well as the basic comforts of a well-established church.  It was sacrifice and I could feel the death of the life I loved.

I had to fight the temptation of viewing sacrifice as the way I litigated my hurts in the courtroom of loss. Rather, sacrifice is an honor that I choose as I serve Jesus. In our hurt, we must never resent the very thing that Jesus meant to use and give us value. But God.  Even when we don’t choose the right response, he has a way of rerouting us to our rightful destination.  Thank you, Jesus!

David says in 2 Samuel 24:24, “No, I insist on buying it from you for a price, for I will not offer to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” 

 As I was processing through some hurts with one of my mentors, she said to me, “You are resenting something that you chose.  You could walk away at any moment, or you can embrace everything that is involved in the call God has on your life.” Those words have remained.  They have gone deep. I choose this life He called me to. Jesus has taken the hurt on Himself and removed it from our hearts.  I refuse resentment.  I refuse to be the victim. Hurt is simply hope being conceived.  Sacrifice is the seed of greater fruit.  And, I refuse to give God that which costs me nothing.