When someone does something to offend you or hurt your feelings it is as if your heart has been broken. When this happens often times it takes a long time for your hurting heart to mend and feel unhurt. Sometimes it takes years to get over a hurt and sometimes people never do get over hurts and that's called holding a grudge.
I have found that getting a hurt heart is part of living life. What makes the difference is what you do about the hurt heart and how you respond to it as well as how you let it affect you.
No one is immune to hurt feelings. God gave us our emotions and He anticipated that we would have plenty of them - highs, lows, joys, sorrows and hurts.
I spend a lot of time with young children and they talk about difficult times they have with their friends - getting left out of a game or unkind words being spoken. You can see in their eyes that this hurts their feelings. With children when we say - your friend will be back to play with you in a little bit or she didn't mean to hurt you - 9 out of 10 times that's true and the injured party runs off and finds a new friend. Before we know it, the two that got into the original argument are playing and having a grand old time again. All is forgotten and forgiven.
With adults, it's not that easily forgotten or forgiven. We seem to hold on to hurts longer. And, we tend to tell other people our hurts rather than talking to the party that hurt us. This is not good for the offended or the offender. Holding on to your hurt only feeds it. It grows and gets stronger and more powerful and eventually hardens your heart. I think it is some sort of self-preservation. The more you think about that hurt, the more it overtakes you and practically becomes an obsession.
I saw this in a some friends that were having marital problems. All she talked about was what he did or didn't do. Each time she talked about it, it was like tearing off a scab on a sore - she never allowed the hurt to heal.
Likewise, for the offender not to be confronted is a disservice to the offender. Perhaps they are oblivious to how their words or actions hurt the other party. It is only fair to at least give them the information so they can either explain or have the opportunity to change their ways.
Can you see how this causes hearts to become hard and unforgiving? There is something to be said for having an attention span of about 15 minutes when matters of hurt hearts are concerned. When people ask how I've stayed married for 43 years, I tell them two things: 1. It's work worth doing. 2. I am forgetful. You see, like I said, having your feelings hurt is part of life and it's part of married life, too. But if you are forgetful, the hurt feelings don't stick around very long. You just get over it and move on or you deal with it, get over it and move on. Once it's forgotten, it's automatically forgiven. It's as if it doesn't exist any more.
At any rate, once your heart has been hurt, it can heal, it can be new again by forgetting and forgiving. You don't want it to get hard and bitter. There is no beauty in that. A soft new heart is one that is beautiful. It is kind, loving and forgiving and God can help you with that.
" I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws."
Ezekiel 36: 26 & 27
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