Don't you dare hold that!

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My feelings are hurt! Someone did something ugly. And it hurt. And as good as my yesterday was, it's silly really, it's not worthy of the battle I find myself fighting.


And yet...


It happened last evening, and the memory of it keeps coming up. All day long I've quickly talked myself out of it and dismissed it as soon as it did. And before I know it or mean for it to, my mind throws it back up again... and then, wham, there's goes the feeling.....


Ugh! What is that?


I'll get over it. Because I'll continue to battle it. Like I said, it's silly really. The enemy just wants to mess with my mind.... and he hopes that I'll mull over it and grow the wound until bigger. He hopes to keep it bleeding. Well, his hope really is that I'll pick at the wound until I puncture it deeper. He hopes that evidently, it'll be a grudge that I'll keep and I'll carry. He hopes I'll nurse the grudge in order to keep its misery active. He's trying to pierce me. He'd love for this thing... this little thing... to grow to be massive! That I'll continue to hoard and harbor bad feelings until it produces a dividing wedge and keeps the person and I forever weirdly divided. 


But! I won't let him! 


Sin.... be off with ya!


Hear my God say to me as He once said to Cain and said later in New Testament Scriptures [These Scriptures are changed to personalize and fit my right now's moment... it's not a direct quote, but its meaning to me is the same], "Sharon, why are you hurt? Why does your face look saddened and why are your brows furrowed? If you take every thought captive as I've told you... If you think only on good things... If you continue to renew your mind... Won't you find victory? But, if you don't, sin is crouching at your door, its desire is to have you, it wants to master and rule over you, but you must master and rule over it... You have inside you that same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Use the power I've enabled you with!"  (Gen 4:5b-7; 2 Cor 10:3-5; Phil 4:8; Rom 12:2; Eph 1:19a-20; 1 Cor 10:13; Eph 3:20)


The above picture has words on it that say, "Forget what hurt you in the past, but never forget what it taught you." 


I like that! 


What did it teach me? It taught me not to do to another as was done to me. Honesty, it wasn't meant to hurt me in the first place. It wasn't done with that purpose. What hurt, was the lie... the deceit that tried to cover up what they didn't want to tell me that wasn't hard to figure out. So un-hard, matter-of-fact, that I figured it out without meaning to, without first even pondering upon it. 


Again, what did it teach me? It taught me not to lie and attempt to cover the truth up. It taught me that it hurts the one you're deceiving when we chose to deceive them. It taught me to remember to just go ahead and to tell the truth to begin with. Truth is freeing. Lies entangle... Lies entrap us.. 


Why are my feelings hurt? Why does my face look like this?..... I don't know, Lord. Your GOoDness, Your grace, Your mercy, Your love.............................................


Oh wow, "Your love"? That same "love" that "keeps no record of wrongs" and tells us not to! Well then, there's my answer. "Record" forgiven! "Record" erased! Because love does that, doesn't it! My face is smiling now! You've given me the Truth, "sent forth Your word," and thus, fixed and healed my feeling!
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