“Hurt people hurt people.” This is what Leif Hetland said when he laid hands on me that day he came to our church several years ago. I was so frustrated! Of all the things this anointed man could say and he said that! I was offended. I took it to mean that I was hurt, and therefore I was hurting other people and that this man was rebuking me!
Oh I was hurt alright! I was dealing with rejection from my childhood and continuing to get rejected by my “spiritual covering” and others around me. I felt like I had no friends and nobody liked me. Because of this I hated who I was; a strong woman. This is a whole other blog post, but strong women are generally not accepted in the church unless they also have an extremely cheerful disposition.
So I took that offense to God. “Hurt people hurt people? God, who am I hurting? Please show me so I can take care of this!” Immediately I heard, “My daughter, you are the one who is hurt by ones who are hurt, and if you don’t get healed you will do the same”. He was telling me that the reason my “spiritual covering” would not accept me was because they themselves were very wounded people. It definitely gave me more grace for them and my anger soon turned to sorrow. This began my journey of healing from my wounds and getting free from being under the authority of people who were too broken to accept me.
You see, what I started to realize was that this hurt people hurt people thing was a cycle and that the reason I had no friends was because of my hurt, which created fear and low self-esteem. I found out that when you are in that cycle you create an atmosphere around you that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I have no friends=I am unlikeable=I appear unapproachable=prophecy fulfilled=no friends. Add in wounded spiritual parents and of course they wanted to stay far from me, which was a trigger for my childhood rejection issues.
You can apply this to so many situations. The reason the gay agenda is attacking Christians and contradicting their own “belief” in tolerance and freedom is that they are hurt people because they have been abused and bullied by people that believe being gay is wrong. So their natural, wounded response is to bully others. Hurt people hurt people.
The reason people abuse their children is because hurt people hurt people.
If you are wounded you can be free! Stop the cycle of hurt in yourself and others. You may think it is too painful to go through the process of healing, but you can’t afford not to! I am so thankful that I did and I continue to do so. I highly recommend a season of counseling and healing prayer.
If you have been hurt by an authority figure, go to the person that hurt you and try to work it out.
This is biblical. You can never control anyone but yourself. As a senior leader of a church I can tell you we are only human. Always forgive. If all attempts to heal the relationship fail and you are continuing to get hurt, you don’t have to stay in abuse, especially in the church. Hurt coming from a spiritual authority is especially damaging because you take on the hurt as if it was from God. It is more difficult to see it for what it is. You are worth so much more than that! One lie I believed was that it would be dishonoring to leave or expose that weakness in my leaders. That one lie caused pain beyond belief when the abuse became enough that I had no choice but to leave. To leave without much choice and then to have that guilt was horrible! What a lie! I now am mostly healed from this and no longer feel guilt. I am truly free.
Thank you Leif! That one, highly offensive, prophetic word brought so much life to me and hopefully to you as well. I am determined to live a new cycle:
Healed people heal people.
Wonderful word. So glad God gave us you.
This post brought so much enlightenment to my life! Thank you so much for your generosity in sharing this, you are awesome! God bless you 🙂