Bleeding pain.

Have you ever hurt yourself before? Maybe you fell and wounded you knees. It may have been someone else that hurt you. A car accident, accident on the play ground or just a fluke thing. Think back on a moment where you physically got hurt. When we get hurt, our immediate response is to fix what is damaged or broken. You break your arm, you get it checked out and placed in a cast in order to not have lasting effects of an unmovable and incapable arm. A part of your body gets cut open, you apply pressure to the wound and get stitches in order to avoid bleeding out and infection. When we are physically hurt, we know the importance of healing and healing properly. When we are hurt emotionally though, we lack the courage and strength to address these types of hurt. A lot of the times it’s not because we don’t know how to gain healing, rather healing emotional pain can be the most painful. I’ve learned that if we don’t heal what hurt us, we will bleed on people who didn’t do the hurting. And eventually, we will remain wounded and crippled.

I can be very stubborn. Especially when it comes to healing. So much so I’d rather keep going injured than taking the time needed to heal. A couple years ago, I sprained my LCL. My knee was swollen and puffed up like a water balloon. Walking was excruciatingly painful and bending my knee was simply not an option. I was told to ice, rest and elevate my injured knee. Most importantly, to take caution in order to prevent re-injury to the ligament during it’s healing.

The doctors order translated to me as, weakness and control. Surly all his orders were not necessary. Today I live to tell the story that they were indeed necessary because had I listened, I would not have the difficulty I face when running long distances or being on my feet for long extended periods of time. My rejection to healing has caused re-injury and pain bleeding into other parts of my leg because of that knee injury. Stubbornness doesn’t pay much other than being a learning lesson to everyone else.

Many of us are bleeding our pain unto others because we’ve failed to seek healing. Our hearts have been punctured by someone that we then walk around bleeding our pain on those who never hurt us. Failure to address and seek healing in emotional pain, only leaves you crippled, injured and more prone to re-injury. A lot of times the reason we hurt so easily is because we’ve been carrying childhood hurt. Carrying childhood hurt has made us wounded adults, bleeding on people. And those same people we are bleeding on, we unfortunately place the pressure on them to clean up the mess we’ve made from bleeding our hurt everywhere. It’s a rippling effect.

Any type of healing can be extremely painful. I’ve experienced the uncomfortableness of physical healing when a cyst was removed from my lower back and the only way to heal properly was to leave a hole in my back and have a nurse dress the wound (that is to clean and apply salt and water to the wound) daily for 3 months or until my the wound no longer remained a wound. The healing process made me sick to my stomach. Let me tell you. Having someone clean a fresh wound daily is no joke. Then to add salt and water to the wound didn’t make it any easier. It felt as if they were scratching my flesh and burning it. Even typing this up is making me sick. The healing was uncomfortable and painful. Had a nurse not cleaned and dressed my wound daily, the wound would have become infected and that infection could have bled into other areas surrounding it.

You see, healing is not simply a means to make something as if it never happened. I have a scar on my lower back that reminds me of two things:

1. A cyst that crippled my lifestyle for almost a year.
2. Healing and God’s faithfulness.

The latter of the two is most important. Just because my body has healed, it doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten that experience or the pain that went with it. Healing does however, allow us to live freely and in strength. No longer do we walk hunched over in pain, but we can walk confidently and boldly. We are not prone to re-injury when healed, rather when a similar pain comes around, we have the right tools to help us address the hurt, “dress” the hurt and gain healing.

If you find yourself bleeding your hurt on someone that didn’t hurt you, it’s time to apply pressure to the wound for the bleeding to stop and then dress the wound with salt and water. While I wish we can do this with emotional hurt, what we can do is apply pressure to the wound by unpacking the hurt you’ve been carrying around. Like a cup filled with infirmity, we need to empty out every feeling you’ve ever held towards whatever it is that hurt you. Lay it all out in the open. Cry and scream at the top of your lungs if need be. Once you’ve gotten rid of all the infection, you can then start dressing the wound with salt and water of God’s word. Whether you believe Jesus is real or not, try it for yourself. Find scripture verses about hurt and pain and read those daily. Alongside that, you may need to ask someone for forgiveness, ask yourself for forgiveness and clean areas in your life that you’ve allowed yourself to bleed on. Like physical healing, this doesn’t just happen in one day. This requires daily practice. It may take quite some time to fully heal, but once you’ve healed, then that’s when you can live out your healing.

Many of us are walking around bleeding our pain on others. We fail to address the wounds we have and have been living for years a crippled life. Our attitude is crippled, our language is crippled and the way we look at life has been crippled. Failure to heal opens the doors for re-injury and immobility of areas in our lives we’ve neglected. I want to challenge you to seek healing. It may be something from childhood, or it may be something more recent. It may be something you did to yourself that you’re ashamed of and never addressed or walked through. Don’t keep living in pain from unaddressed hurt. You may not realize it, but you are bleeding your hurt on people around you that never did the hurt. I challenge you today to address the wound, dress the wound and walk in freedom. It’s up to you!

Are you bleeding your hurt on people who never did the hurt? If so, how can you make steps towards healing today?