Hurt, Time, and Grace

A starting note: I am not trying to minimize or belittle the intense emotions that hurt and pain can be, nor am I trying to belittle the causes of such hurt. I am merely trying to talk about the tendancy (which I have in abundance) to internalize that hurt into pieces of our identities. Some people face and deal with pain (Kudos!), some merely accept...

Somedays (or weeks, or months...) everything seems to be going so wrong. You're feeling hurt, stepped on, trampled even, and then it happens, that little ray of light that shows you just how narrow your view of your current situation has been. This is not neccessarily a pleasent experience. It can be hard to accept the pain and suffering that you're experiencing, but once you do, its stuck to you like toilet paper to the bottom of a damp shoe. There is a fine line between experiencing and coping with pain and accepting it as part of your identity, a line that I am not experienced at differentiating.

I know this is one of my personal failings. When I'm hurt, the hurt often becomes part of me. Curran is not just a man experiencing hurt; he has, in fact, become the Hurt Man. Let's quickly review the downside to this shall we?
1) This makes me very sensitive about recieving hurt.
2) By becoming my hurt, the world suddenly turns into this massive entity that is "out to get me."
3) I won't even try to go into what this does to friends, family, and aquaintances. I am truly sorry for the pain that my selfishness causes you.
4) Moving beyond the hurt is now a much harder process because I am quite litteraly giving up myself. True, not a part that I want or even one that has been around for a while, but it is still a giving up of my identity.

This giving up of one's hurt identity is such a crucial piece of being a Christian too. This is just a slight variant on the "death of the oldself" while the new self is freed. God did not create us as sinfull creatures; repenting and giving up our sin is required in order to live the life He has designed. Likewise, God did not create us as hurt creatures; letting go of our hurt is also needed to truly live the life He has planned. Sin and hurt do not have a place in the people that God has designed, but they do have a place in free will and a fallen world.

Sadly, I don't always stand so strong. It hurts to admit it. I'm supposed to be better than this. I'm not this petty and selfish. But then again... I am... now. The beauty of God's grace is that He lets "now" become "then (past tense)." He doesn't give a free ride however, for "tomorrow" is becoming "now."