Hurt is a constant thing. If you’re human, you’ll get hurt. When will hurts stop? When you die. Okay, maybe I’m wrong. Just to be sure, wait about 5 minutes after you die. Then you’ll be sure you won’t get hurt anymore. (Perhaps your brain will still be twitching for a few more seconds, who knows?) So if you’re hurting right now, thank God. That means you’re still alive.
Today, we want to look at the History of our hurts. A good doctor needs to diagnose before he cures. If you examine the history of all your hurts, you’ll realize that most of your hurts are self-inflicted.
When I say that, I’m preaching to myself. And I’m preaching to everyone. No one is exempt from this fact.
I’ve realized that a lot of people have set their life up for hurts.
My big message for today? Set yourself up to be happy.
As an intro, I want to divide our hurts into three…
1. Serious Hurts
Serious hurts are our big hurts.
For example, if a parent abandons you; Or if your father abuses you; Or if your spouse commits adultery; Or if a best friend betrays you…
Question: Why do people hurt others in such horrible ways?
Answer: Hurt people hurt people. If he’s hurting others by his words and actions, it’s because deep down, he’s got wounds so big, pains so massive, it causes him to hurt others. I believe that the evilest person in the world was once upon a time an innocent child that was not loved. And his wound became the breeding ground of evil.
But not all hurts are serious.
Most of them are small…
2. Small Hurts
Most hurts are small hurts—and it’s not because people are evil. It’s because people are human.
Every day, people can hurt us without malice. They don’t intend to hurt us. But we get hurt anyway.
For example, when your spouse forgets your anniversary, women say that’s an unforgivable crime. But what if he forgot because he’s under a lot of pressure in the office. Yes, it will hurt you. But he did it not because he’s evil. He did it because he’s a guy. (Sorry, I’m male. I know my tendency to be so single-minded, I forget everything else. This is the reason I married my wife on my birthday. So I’ll never forget our anniversary.)
And then there’s a third kind of hurt— and I believe the majority of all our hurts fall into this category…
3. Self Hurts
I repeat: Most of the hurts we complain about is self-inflicted. We bring it upon ourselves.
Actually, there are two main ways we hurt ourself…
When we REPEAT our mistakes
When we REPLAY our hurts
First, When We REPEAT Our Mistakes
Making mistakes is normal.
We’re not angels. (My kids just look like angels…when they’re asleep.)
I believe the only way to progress is to keep making more mistakes. Here’s the difference between Winners and Losers: Winners make new mistakes every day; Losers make the exact same mistakes over and over again.
One day, two friends meet. One guy has both of his ears bandaged. His friend asked, “Oh no, what happened to you?
“My ears got burned,” the first guy said.
“Oh my gosh,” the friend asked, “How did it happen?”
He sighed and told the story. “This morning, I was ironing my clothes. My cellphone was beside me and it rang. But instead of picking up the phone, I picked up the iron and placed it on my ear….”
“Ooooooouch….” The other friend grimaced. “But what happened to the other ear?”
“The person called back….”
Here’s the second way we hurt ourself…
2. When We REPLAY Our Hurts
When I was in Grade School, I had a classmate everyone called Gally because his skin was covered with wounds. (Yep, “Gally” meant “Galis”. Kids can be very mean.) And somehow, his wounds never healed. One day, I realized why. We were talking in the cafeteria, and during the entire time I was with him, I saw his fingers claw, and scratch, and poke, and dig into his many old wounds, making them fresh again. It was a horrible sight.
I told him, “Stop that!”
He looked at me, startled. He asked, “Stop what?”
Wow. He didn’t know what he was doing. Wounding himself was something he did unconsciously.
Stop Worshiping Your Hurt
If you’ve been hurt by others—either serious hurts or small hurts—don’t worsen your hurt. Stop rewinding it in your mind. Stop meditating on it, dwelling on it, and being fixated on it. Acknowledge it. Accept it. But stop making the hurt the center of your life. Stop making it your little god. Move on.
I know this. I was molested as a child and I was trapped in shame for 20+ years. I let my wound define me so much, I hated myself. And I fell into porn addiction and approval addiction that ate up my life.
Do you know what I realized? I was hurt by my molestor, yes, but I hurt myself even more by allowing the wound to take over my life.
If you worship your hurt and follow it around, you’ll start collecting more of it…
Replay Old Hurts by Looking for Similar Hurts
Some are stamp collectors. Coin collectors. Doll collectors.
And some are hurt collectors.
They look for them, accumulate them, and prove to themselves that they’re the most hurt person on the Planet.
Years ago, when I walked into a prayer meeting, I greeted a lady and the first words that came out of her mouth was, “Bo, you don’t love me…”
I was shocked. “Huh?”
She said, “In the last four prayer meetings, you didn’t greet me!”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.”
“Aha!” she said. “You saw everyone. But you don’t see me. I’m invisible to you. Because I’m not important to you….”
Here was a mistake: I started to laugh. Because I thought it was a joke. But when I looked at her, she was dead serious. I quickly wiped the smile off my face and said, “Gosh, I’m so sorry…”
At the time, our prayer meeting had 300+ people—and it was impossible for me to greet everyone.
There are people who have become so sensitive, they replay old hurts by looking for similar hurts.
May your dreams come true,
Bo Sanchez
