How God Has Been Healing My Hurts

I grew up with a lot of anger and hurt. My mother was verbally and physically abusive all through my childhood. Many incidents were traumatically etched in my mind, such as her coldness, ignoring me, refusing to sympathize when I fell off my bike, ripping at the snarls in my curly hair painfully, spanking me bare-bottomed with a wooden paddle, demanding I take a bath when the water was too hot, throwing away my treasured poems and stories I wrote, and constantly lambasting my every wrong, even when I didn’t think I had done wrong. How could I hope for God healing my hurts?

I hated her; I even fantasized about attacking, hurting her to her ultimate destruction. I knew I was just too gentle of a person to ever really hurt her, but every time I fantasized, it helped me feel justified in my hurt. One time she even disowned me, telling me she was not my mother anymore when she was mad at some rebellious incident. She said she didn’t care what happened to me. Those words stung like acid stings a cut. They cut deep into my heart and festered a significant wound.  

Proverbs 14:10: The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.

I started going to Christian therapy in my mid-thirties and my therapist pointed out that I had deep unforgiveness against my mother and had to forgive her. At the time I felt helpless to let go of all the intense resentment that had built up over the years. I didn’t know how to forgive. Then, five years later, I went through five deliverance sessions, but the women counselors mentioned that I needed to forgive my mother. There it was…again. How could I?

I Have Been a Tormented Soul

I started college two years later and began seeking instruction on forgiving. After going through one college, then the second one, then a theology school while trying to learn how to forgive in vain–I had no success. It got to the point where I was hearing a sermon on the need to forgive every single week. God was making His point clear. Was I listening?

There were more hurts. A man from my neighborhood was harassing me every day, and I was suffering extreme persecution. My dog was acting out in rebellious ways, and it frustrated me. My sister was hurting me with her mentally manipulative mind games.

Being around a group of saints for a Bible study was causing more hurt. They excluded me from their invitations to personal get-togethers and acted like I was an outcast, no matter how I tried to contribute to the discussion.

I am a magnet for abuse…I thought recently

Several other past hurts I had also shoved down in the recesses of my memory: rude customers in my cashier line, verbally abusive managers who made me feel like I couldn’t measure up, people who tried to hurt me deliberately. How could God heal these traumas?

Psalm 25:16-20: Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me; for I am desolate and afflicted. The troubles of my heart are enlarged: O bring thou me out of my distresses. Look upon mine affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins. Consider mine enemies; for they are many; and they hate me with cruel hatred. O keep my soul, and deliver me: let me not be ashamed; for I put my trust in thee.

I read resource after resource looking for answers to God healing my hurts. One night I was at the emergency room, afraid of extreme symptoms, and while sitting in the waiting room I decided then and there that I was going to forgive my mother. I let all the pain surface, then I chose to live with the consequences; not to be angry anymore. I chose to accept the painful results of her abuse and chose to release it to God, turning my heart up toward Him and letting all the pain flow up to Him and out of my heart. After all, I do love my mom (now), even though she can be so cruel (and still is).

Psalm 94:22: But the Lord is my defence; and my God is the rock of my refuge.

The Lord is Faithful

God is still healing my hurts, more and more. I recently went through a six-week biblical life group on forgiveness at my church, and the healing for the other hurts has begun. There were amazing tips such as realizing they are hurting souls themselves. I realized they are unlikely to change, so you just have to accept their cruelty as something that God allows to bring about beautiful strong character and humility in you that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. When that ended, I resumed attending another Bible study life group, and the topic is The Bait of Satan, by John Bevere. All about forgiveness.

Psalm 62:8: Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.

I spent years pleading with God to help me forgive. He may take His time, but He surely comes through when we ask Him to heal us. The loving heart of the Father longs to see us emotionally healed and whole. He is a faithful God. Amen.

Psalm 147:3 He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.

Isaiah 38:17: Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.