Overcoming Your Hurt
by Pastor Jeffrey Smith
Above all else, guard your heart,for everything you do flows from it. Proverbs 4:23 NIV
Hurt is an inevitable part of life. Perhaps the most common relationships that we get hurt from are our marriage and family. The interesting thing about hurt in your family is that you can’t really get away from the people you live with and interact with on a daily basis. As a result, if we don’t deal with our hurt in an effective way, it continues to develop. I want to briefly share with you four stages of a hurt heart in hopes that you may be able to identify some hurt in your life, and deal with it before it develops further.
1. A Wounded Heart: This stage usually occurs at the beginning of hurt. Wounded hearts are usually the most sensitive. People with wounded hearts are in some ways hoping that their hurt is seen and attended to by others. If you have a wounded heart, a part of you is waiting to be asked, “What’s wrong?” so that you can begin to let out the hurt and work toward a resolution.
2. Cold Heart-If we don’t find a way to address our hurt, the wounded heart becomes a cold heart. When you develop a cold heart, you’re no longer sensitive about the hurt. Instead, you start to behave as if nothing is wrong because you actually do not want the hurt to be addressed or brought up. Cold heartedness can lead to aggression as a means of keeping others from getting too close to the hurt.
3. Hard Heart- This results in you closing off from your relationships and being bitter and resentful toward them. Your feelings are usually laced with contempt and frustration.
4. Apathetic Heart- This is perhaps the most frightening of all the stages of hurt because an apathetic heart leaves you caring very little for your relationships. You have no desire to try and work toward resolution and you do not care what the other person says or does.
The heart is the source of our entire life. Today, look inward and ask yourself what sort of hurt you’re. Regardless of if it feels fair or not, you can always try to open the lines of communication and make things right, not just for your sake, but for the sake of your family.
