Hoarding Our Hurts

I received a profound phone call from a friend today. After having suffered for half a decade with bitterness, hurt, and resentment against family members, she had come to a monumental realization. Here’s how she expressed it: It is not that I haven’t forgiven my parents; I have. But I realized that I have been hoarding my hurt, and there was no room left for grace to dance and rejoice in my life.

What brought this revelation to my friend was watching one of those cable reality shows about people who are hoarders. Their lives become increasingly restricted and polluted by their emotional inability to throw anything away. Eventually, they lose friends, then family, until their very survival is threatened because of their need to hang on to everything – even gross, disgusting things.

While watching one of these programs, my friend (I am sure with the help of the Holy Spirit), suddenly saw herself. Although her exterior life is very neat and orderly, inside, her soul was stuffed with boxes and paper bags – all full of past hurts, wounds, and offenses. She too was a hoarder: a hoarder of past hurts. Even though she yearned for the expression of God’s grace in her life, she had left no room for it. Grace couldn’t get through the front door, much less dance in the hallways and rooms of her heart! Hurt had taken over her world.

Many of us are in the same place. Little by little, day-by-day, we start picking up wounds and offenses. We stuff them away in the secret places of our hearts and minds. Over time, our memories begin to fill and overflow with the wrongs that have been done to us. It doesn’t happen suddenly. It takes time. But one day, we realize there is very little evidence of God’s love and grace in our lives – because He cannot find a place to put it! “Junk” has filled our lives to the brim.

Soon, our relationships with others begin to suffer. Whenever we open the doors of our heart, the rotting stench of those past offenses comes rolling out. Even people who love us can’t bear to be around us much because our constant recollection of past hurts becomes too much for others to endure.

Still, we cling to these wounds as if they were some valued treasure. We can’t discard them because they serve too important a purpose. They are proof to others and to ourself that we are victims… and therefore are excused from forgiving and loving those who have hurt us. They explain away our faults and failures. “After all," we say, "what else can you expect from someone who has been so deeply hurt?”

There are three problems with this approach to life’s emotional wounds: First, this attitude destroys both us and our relationships. Second, it denies the power of Christ to heal and set free. And third, it is a form of disobedience to the commands of God.

If there is anything that reveals the will of God in our lives, it is our willingness to forgive those who trespass against us, (Matthew 6:12, Luke 6:37, 11:14). Nothing more perfectly displays the character of Christ than forgiveness (Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 2:13, 3:13). And nothing displays love more truly than to forgive those who harm us (Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:27, 35). The very core of the Gospel is that God has forgiven you and me for our sins against Him, only because Jesus paid the price for those sins. And we in turn should be more than willing to forgive those who have trespassed against us.

We refer to this message as the Gospel of God’s Grace. But that message can only be communicated when we have allowed that grace to grow forgiveness in our own lives – and then in turn become ministers of the same. It is only when we live lives that are a regular celebration of grace received that we can become channels for expressing that grace to others.

Blaming and victimization are increasingly the hallmarks of American culture. We don’t move forward because we are preoccupied with hoarding our hurts. Our misery is someone else’s fault. A certain rabbinical saying speaks truth to this point: You can blame your parents for the first forty years of your life; but the second forty is your fault!

I believe God gives us the ability to see the faults of others so that we can learn from them and avoid the same failures. Sadly, most people don’t see personal hurts as lessons to be learned. Instead those hurts become places to settle.

You may never be able to forget what was done to you, but you can learn from those wounds. Solomon put it best when he wrote, “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses,”(Proverbs 27:6). Jesus is our best friend – yet He also allows wounds to touch our lives. He does it to help us grow in grace. Trust Him. Stop hoarding your hurts, and begin dancing with grace in the hallways and rooms of your soul.