Hurt

It was one of those comments that was just so out of place and hard to believe, I really didn’t even know how to react to it. I wasn’t mad or upset. I was just stunned. Standing in the isle at our daughter Cadee’s funeral, a well-meaning person came up to us, put his arms around our necks and said, “I just want you guys to know…you are so lucky. You got to have three months with your daughter…” Now before you think this person was completely out of touch, I must tell you, this was not the worst comment we heard. Our daughter Cadee was born into the middle of a mess. For her whole, short life, she was the hope that kept life going. On November 30th, 2006 she went to sleep for a nap and never woke up. I still don’t have the words to describe the hurt that I felt from that. In reality, the entire fall of 2006 was filled with hurt after hurt. In that context, you can imagine it was difficult to know how to respond to the person who came up to us and said, “I really know how much this hurts. We had a dog die recently and he was like a member of our family and I just know how much this hurts.” Honestly, my first response in my head was, “Wow! I mean, WOW! I don’t really know whether to cry, or laugh or scream.” Just so you know, I decided to laugh… not right at that moment, but in the car on the way from the church to the cemetery…we had a good (and much needed) laugh.

I have a friend who works in ministry in Indiana and last summer one of the students in his youth group was killed in a car accident. I remember talking with him on the phone after this happened and he made an interesting comment to me. He told me he was hurting, but then quickly said that he felt bad about hurting and that he needed to be strong for everyone else. He felt bad because he thought it wasn’t right for him to be hurting so much, when, in his mind, the family was the one that was really hurting. I realized something in that moment as I talked with him – there is no measure or scale for hurt. When you hurt…you hurt. If something you are experiencing is the worst hurt you’ve ever known, then it hurts more than anything you can imagine. For my friend, this was a deep hurt and it needed some attention. While his hurt was different from the hurt the kid’s parents were feeling… it was still real hurt and no less valid. And for the person whose dog had died recently, that hurt them and they wanted us to know they were hurting with us. The man who told us we were lucky was really saying that he was hurting, and some how the death of our daughter reminded him of his own hurts from the past.

Hurt has to be one of the toughest emotions for us to deal with as humans. It is hard for us to know what to say to hurting people. Our desire is to say something helpful, or do something that will help bring healing, but knowing what that is so difficult. On the other hand, experiencing hurt can often disrupt our whole life and leave us questioning so many things. If we are a person of faith, often our hurts cause us to question some of our core beliefs. It may seem like an obvious statement, but hurt hurts.

It seems to me that Jesus had a soft spot in his heart for hurting people. Throughout his recorded life, he always seemed to find those who had been hurt and bring some form of healing to their life. Jesus often violated cultural norms when he was healing people. In the cases of Jesus’ physical healing, he often was ministering to the outcasts of society. The woman with bleeding who touch his clothes was unclean according to society. The man born blind was under the suspicion of sin (either him or his parents). Lepers, lame, sick… even the dead were healed by Jesus. But Jesus also offered healing in many different ways. To Zacchaeus, he acknowledged that, not only was he someone worthy of sharing a meal with, he was also someone worth saving. To the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus acknowledged that her past was filled with hurt, but offered her healing. Interesting that this Samaritan woman, who had been a complete outcast, was able to convince many people of her town came to believe in Jesus because of her!! (John 4:39) I wonder what the witness of a church would be if they could somehow find a way to offer healing to hurting people. How many communities might be positively affected if a church could find a way to really offer Jesus’ healing to hurting people!!

The challenge for the church is that when we are ministering to hurting people, we sometimes hurt to. When we see hurting people and when we reach out to hurting people, sometimes the scares from our past begin to sting a little again. Sometimes our open wounds are exposed and we realize that we still stand in need of healing. Hopefully we are reminded that we need each other and we are in continual need of God’s healing. Unfortunately, it seems so often in the church, we try to cover up our hurts and hide the broken people. I wonder how many times someone has been around a group of “church” people and thought they were the only one with any problems. My prayer for the church is that we may become a community of healing, a place where hurting people come and find they are not alone.

May our heart for hurting people beat in tune with the heart of God.