Handling the Hurt

That text message stung. The long silences are filled with awkwardness. A distraction removes them from a conversation they never return to finish or revisit. The look in their eye tells you they’re not listening. He distances and hides. She overshares, becomes needy or completely insecure. Some scream and defend hotly. Heated conversation is typical. Others become cynical and dark. Some are so defensive about everything you feel it’s impossible to have a civil conversation.

Hurt people hurt people.

The hurt comes in all shapes and sizes. The passive aggressive are good at passing barbs or veiled stinging messages. The overtly aggressive scream and spew anger over the smallest incidents. The avoiders, avoid, sometimes even lie, or tell you what they think you want to hear, but they aren’t honest.

Yellers yell because they don’t feel heard.

Avoiders avoid because deep feelings scare them.

The overly distracted don’t have the capacity in the moment to even have the conversation.

Chances are if you’ve been hurt by someone, they are hurting also. In deep ways. They have open wounds now oozing into your life. Sometimes these people are aware of this, but I have found most people have zero clue they’ve hurt someone. Most people are so busy trying to hide and or treat their wounds, they don’t realize the effect it’s having on those around them.

Jesus was hurt by hurting people. He was rejected by his own hometown. Kicked out. Turned away. He was denied by Peter, one of His closest friends. Only one of ten lepers returned to say thank you the day He healed them all. We like to think of Him as perfect because He was, but the Bible says He also faced every human experience. He felt disappointment. He knew the burning irrationality of being offended. He was tempted to turn His back on those He knew would be ungrateful or had been ungrateful before. He had feelings, and I must believe for Him to understand my struggles in life, those feelings got hurt. (Luke 4:14-30, Matthew 26:69-75, Luke 17:11-19, Hebrews 4:15)

But He handled it all with grace and gentility, truth and love. Every wounded, hurting person was handled with care. He never excused the adulterous woman’s sin, but He also did not condemn her. He dispersed her accusers, then once they were alone, He told her to sin no more. He got His hands dirty with spit and mud healing some. He was begged to leave towns for healing others. The record of His conversation with the woman at the well is genius. Somehow, the way He spoke to her, made her love Him more even though He pointed out her every wrong! I like to think it’s because she felt fully known by Him, even her ugliness, yet fully loved by Him also. (John 8:1-11, John 9:6, Matthew 8:28-34, John 4:4-42)

The hurting that encountered Jesus were not always told truth, but they were always shown love.

Look around you. Today, in this divided, defensive world, every person you encounter is most likely hurting in ways you don’t see and have no way of understanding. Words AND actions are powerful tools. They must be carried and used in truth AND love. Sometimes both are needed in the moment. Other times, only actions of love are needed (1 John 3:18).

Jesus had the perfect wisdom of God to know when and how and what to say and do. I’m sure He felt the rub of wanting to speak truth, to correct, to guide, to offer advice, but in His wisdom, He chose to simply show up and be present instead. I also believe He felt that sensation in the pit of your stomach where you don’t want to say something, but you know you have to or need to say something, so in His wisdom He spoke truth with grace out of love and concern and in the need of the moment with compassion (Ephesians 4:29).

As Christians, followers of Jesus, we do not have to remain silent. We shouldn’t remain silent. We are called to hold one another accountable. In fact, the only people we are given permission to judge this side of heaven is our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. But we are out of practice in our delivery and soft skills to successfully enter those moments with others.

Our conviction and passion are too often received as condemnation when they are not delivered in a package wrapped by love and grace and given amid relationship.

So yes, speak the truth God has revealed to you. BUT speak it with the intention to show love. Speak it with the intention to offer grace where someone is drowning in shame. Speak it to offer a hand of camaraderie or commissary, letting the other person know, no matter what, you are in this with them, alongside them. Take the time to build or repair the foundation of the relationship, gaining trust, before speaking hard truths.

Because truth is an anchor. It is sturdy and solid. It will ground your faith, be a firm foundation. It will not move when the storms of life come. But it is heavy. To a drowning person, it is heavy. To a person soaring high in the clouds of life, it can be heavy. To the person on a long journey, it is heavy.

Know your audience before you hand them truth. It may be exactly what they need to hear, but you may need to get in the water and help them tread with the weight of it. You may need to be the counterbalance to the weight of the truth keeping them from crashing. You may need to plan to join them on their journey before you hand them the truth to take with them.

Yes, as Christians we are called to speak the truth to one another in love. We are called to hold each other to God’s standards of righteousness. But our culture has taught us we can spout these things over social media or in a text message or drop it like bombs in a one-off conversation, and somehow people are supposed to change their minds because we spoke truth in this manner? God can still use these methods because He can work all things for good, but this is not the example Jesus lived for us (Ephesians 4:15, Romans 8:28).

Jesus got His hands dirty. He spent hours eating and conversing inside the homes of the hurting. He made Himself available for one-on-one conversations. And in those moments, in those ways, when He was doing life with people, He spoke hard truths, and then He offered Himself as the means to help them carry and live with that truth.

I’m not Jesus, but I can try to be like Him. His Holy Spirit abides with me, so if I abide with Him, I can do all the things He calls me to do. If He strengthens me to hand over a heavy truth, then He also makes me strong enough to help carry the truth with the receiver, OR He’s already strengthened them to be able to carry it alone. When you have a relationship with the person, you will know which is true.

In the meantime, every Christian must practice balancing loving well with grace AND truth. We miss the mark when we err on either side. If you are a grace-giver by nature, it is wise to develop relationships with truth-tellers and vice versa. The perfect balance of the two leads us all straight to Jesus, and that is how the body of Christ accomplishes its purpose here on earth.

We are all hurting people, hurting people. The sooner we all accept this shortcoming about ourselves and each other, the sooner we can get around to figuring out how to be healing people that help each other heal.