The Source

Pretend that there is a girl in a counseling session. She is dealing with some trauma from her childhood. As she walks through her memories, she experiences the pain and fear of that situation all over again. This time, though, God is healing her. She realizes the truth of it: It was not her fault. God loves her. She will survive, she will be whole again, she is beautiful.

The river of tears still flow as they always have whenever she remembers this time. This time, though, the tears are from being overwhelmed with incredible relief, comfort and peace. Tears of pain and fear have been replaced with tears of life. For the first time ever, this girl no longer feels like she is dead and buried. Instead she feels free to take a few tentative steps, to discover who she is and see the world as if it was brand new. It's like taking her a breath of air for the first time. It's almost scary for her to feel so happy and beautiful. It's life changing.

And then the counselor asks her to remember the situation again. This time, those waves of black emotion no longer roll over. This time, she recognizes that God is there with her. This time, she sees the enemy for who he is: A monster, but a pitiful monster. A person whose life has been destroyed, and who spreads destruction in turn. She feels pity for this tragic figure. She is in control of her heart and her mind now. She is not tormented and recoiling, she sees herself for who she truly is and that dark memory no longer binds her.

I've often heard of counseling scenarios like this. This is an entirely fictional one with few details, of course. However, I have heard that real healing like this not only results the girl seeing herself clearly for the first time, it also results in seeing the other person clearly for the first time. She sees how valuable and good and beautiful she is. And as a side effect, the person that attacked is no longer this impossible monster but instead they are seen as the broken and bleeding human being that they are.

Everyone has somebody in their past that has hurt them. I wrote about various examples here: Father and mothers, family, friends, boyfriends or girlfriends, bosses... Most of us have been hurt, though perhaps not so dramatically, and we all need healing and freedom from these things.

And with that life giving change, we start to see that almost everyone that hurt us was first hurt themselves. That abusive person may have first received abuse from their own parents. The controlling boss is just coping with a bad home life. The judgmental pastor was just trying his best considering how judgmental his own church was when he was growing up. That road rage freak experienced the pain of losing his parents as a young age and never learned how to deal with it.

Everyone has a story. We are the products of our past and the way that we reacted to that history. Whenever someone attacks someone else, in either word or action, it might just be a sign of how broken that person is on the inside. Whenever we see patterns of weird and detrimental behaviour, it might point to how that person grew up or was taught or how they reacted to a situation.

It's not necessarily a cause-and-effect thing, of course. Sometimes people are just jerks, right? ("Stop head butting me, Mr. Simpson.") However, I find that this is often my very first question when I hear about an especially mean boss or a crazy circumstance or an emotionally fragile person.

Why? Why did that person act that way? Why do they think that's normal behaviour? Why can't they see how harmful their actions are? Why do they choose to attack like that? Why are they so vulnerable, or why are they so hard-hearted? Why do they keep doing the same weird things while thinking that's acceptable?

What is the source of it?

And when we ask that question, it effects how we respond. Rather than just trying to defend ourselves, fight or flight, we now look for a better way out. Instead of responding only in anger or fear, we see that maybe the other person is just as wounded as we are - maybe even more. This question is what we find when we take control of our hearts and decisions, when we make our choices independantly, when we are whole again.

None of us are perfect, none of us have had completely picturesque lives. However, we can have healing and freedom for ourselves. And we can start to understand the hearts and minds of others a bit better...