Healing the Wounded Heart

One of the biggest barriers to experiencing and walking in Father's love is wounding of the heart.  There is a great danger in talking about woundedness because then we tend to focus on our hurt and on ourselves, rather than who Christ is for us.  The other side of the ditch is that we ignore and deny that people are wounded by sin, then we have many people who are stuck and not growing due to not finding healing for their wounds.  When important people sin against us, particularly as children, then there is often a wound which gives rise to a lie about our identity.  If the person does not give access to the wound to Jesus, then the lie remains until it is triggered by relationships or circumstances.

The most common way that wounding is caused is by some form of rejection, abandonment, neglect, or abuse.  An important role of parents in our lives is to represent the love of the Father to us, when they misrepresent His love then wounding and hurt can give rise to lies.  Love is connected to being valued, when our value is diminished by those entrusted to growing us up valued and loved then there is wounding.  In Charles Solomon's 1991 book "The Ins and Out of Rejection" he says that 98% of Christians are not walking in their identity "in Christ" and it is primarily because they find their identity into woundedness.

Jesus was deeply wounded while He walked the earth but there was purpose for His wounding.  The prophet Isaiah reveals the Messiah's purpose for being wounded in Isaiah 53:3-5 says "He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.  Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.  But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed."  Jesus identified with us in our brokenness, grief, wounds, and hurt so we could identify with Him in His wholeness and freedom.

As we give Jesus access to the most wounded places in our hearts (rejection, abandonment, abuse, and neglect), then we receive truth from Him which removes the lie and heals our hearts.  From this encounter we can bring healing to others, so our wounds become not only a place of healing for us but also for others.

In His Healing for our wounds,
Bret