broken pots

No one likes the word “hurt.” When we hear that word, we associate it with the pain that it evokes within us. But what do we do with that pain? Do we say, “I am hurting,” “I was hurt,” “you hurt me,” or do we simply push it down until we (almost) forget it is there? I have had to come to terms with this as I have been reading through, Life’s Healing Choices by John Baker (100% recommend, hurting or not), and I have been ravaged by the hurt that I have pushed down throughout my entire life. If you know me, you know that I am not one to frown for long. I enjoy seeing things through my rose colored lenses because, in my opinion, life is better that way. Although, in some cases, I use my lenses to make life easier. No one likes to hurt, and no one likes to address the cause of a hurt. It forces us to search within ourselves and bring out the old, dirty, broken skeletons from the closet. Further, it force

s us to reveal those skeletons. Healing from hurt is one of the most difficult things for this reason: we have to admit our brokenness. We have to admit our spiritual poverty. We have to admit that we are not God. We hurt, we crack, and we break. As I have been walking through the healing process of hurts in my life, I have been continually forced to lay my hurt on the table and confront it. Doing this, I have realized over and over again how I have let Satan win. I have hidden away my hurt in the dark and locked it up tight. How can God use something that is hidden?

“No one lights a lamp and then covers it with a washtub or shoves it under the bed. No, you set it up on a lamp stand so those who enter the room can see their way. We’re not keeping secrets; we’re telling them. We’re not hiding things; we’re bringing everything out into the open.”

Luke 8:17 MSG

I recently heard an analogy that shifted my perspective on hurt and shame: broken pots spill more water. When we bring our hurt forward, when we share the things that Satan labels shameful, we share the power of Christ and our desperate need for him. We are broken, we are spiritually poor- God created us to be that way because he created us to need him. Walking through Baker’s book, I have shifted my thinking of what hurt is. It is a tool that we can use to light a room so that others can see God. Our hurts were purposefully designed by God to be used to extend his glory to others who are hurting and don’t have a loving God to heal them.

We’re not hiding things; we’re bringing everything out into the open.