Reflection
There are times in each of our lives when our most sincere efforts and even our deepest caring are not appreciated. Worse yet, sometimes we experience rejection of the gifts we offer. We experience frustration and anger as we attempt to balance what is happening with our expectations. To try to walk around this, rise above it. or to say we don’t care doesn’t help. The wound is real and it hurts. We care deeply about what has happened and what we have experienced. This is the time to speak the truth to ourselves. It is painful but unavoidable. Allowing ourselves to feel our feelings is the only way to set our hearts free.
Prayer
Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me?
John 9:14
Action
Think of a situation in which you may have tried to avoid facing your feelings.
Let yourself experience the feelings you had and set yourself free.
Suggested Reading
Something opens our wings. Something makes boredom and hurt disappear. Someone fills the cup in front of us: We taste only sacredness.
Rumi
One of the main tasks of theology is to find words that do not divide but unite, that do not create conflict but unity, that do not hurt but heal.
Henri Nouwen
There is something beautiful about all scars of whatever nature. A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with.
Harry Crews
Have you ever been hurt and the place tries to heal a bit, and you just pull the scar off of it over and over again.
Rosa Parks
Everyone can relate to love, hurt, pain, learning how to forgive, needing to get over, needing the power of God in their life.
Tyler Perry
We need to give each other the space to grow, to be ourselves, to exercise our diversity. We need to give each other space so that we may both give and receive such beautiful things as ideas, openness, dignity, joy, healing, and inclusion.
Max de Pree
Healing yourself is connected with healing others.
Yoko Ono
Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it.
Tori Amos
Meditation can help us embrace our worries, our fear, our anger; and that is very healing. We let our own natural capacity of healing do the work.
Thich Nhat Hanh
If you are going through hell, keep going.
Winston Churchill