When you make yourself the center of the universe, it takes a great amount of energy and skill to keep yourself, your environment, and everyone around you under control. Once you have made the decision—unconsciously or consciously—to never be hurt again, you can only accomplish it through certain methods and techniques, including addictions such as drugs, alcohol, overeating, gambling, and a host of other behaviors that numb your pain.
Anger is another tool which serves to keep those around fearful and distant. Obsessions and compulsions keep everything under your strict control. Being a workaholic keeps you hiding in your success. Keeping your emotional distance guarantees that no one will get close enough to hurt you again. Perfectionism keeps you self-absorbed with the importance of how things look, as opposed to how things really are. Or perhaps you have become trapped in the sadness of your past, making it difficult for you to enjoy any real happiness that the future may offer.
We all have been wounded. Behind closed doors, many of us have been abused sexually, physically, mentally, emotionally, or in any combination of ways. What some people have endured is incomprehensible; there is no excuse for it. Abuse is wrong and evil, and evil has no boundaries, no biases, no prejudices and no favorites. The sheer randomness of evil is why it doesn’t matter how many times you review it in your mind; it will never make sense.
The only way out is to spend time breaking the powerful hold the wounds of your past have over you. You may seek counseling from a trained professional or address your pain through prayer or forgiveness, but no matter which avenue of healing you choose, you’ll find that the best way to overcome the past is by not allowing it to have any say in your future. You see, if you’re not careful, you can become an unwilling perpetrator in passing on the very wound you hate so much to someone who you say you love, leaving yet another generation to deal with it. To do so would be tragic. May God give you wisdom and courage to make Him the center and not yourself.
