You Are Not Alone in Your Pain

When we go through trauma, it often feels like we are alone, or at least, alone in our pain.  We may know other people have experienced similar hurts, but it doesn’t feel like anyone understands, or worse yet, like no one cares.
Feeling alone, invalidated, or even ashamed, is common for people who go through deep hurts, especially when that pain is perpetrated by someone we love.  Deliberate hurt is called ‘abuse’, and failure to nurture, validate, and take care of a vulnerable person is ‘neglect.’  Some of us want to pretend abuse and/or neglect never happened, hope we can ‘outgrow’ it or ‘move past’ it.  The truth is: abuse and neglect exact a painful toll on their victims. It is only by facing the pain of our past and processing through it that we will be able to rise above it.


Thousands of men and women have done just that—they have paused in their flight from hurt and shame long enough to acknowledge it, and gone on to work through it.  I challenge you, today, to allow yourself to face the truth about your past, not only about what you have done to others, but what has been done to you.  There may be a reason (though not an excuse) that you have raced down the path to destruction, if that has been your course.  The only way to get on the right road is to re-trace your steps and stand once more at the ‘parting of the ways.’

 To accept responsibility for the wrongs you have done, and learn to hold others accountable for their wrongs against you.  Please hear me when I say, abuse in any form is never the fault of the victim.  No matter what you may have done or said, you are not to blame for being abused or neglected. What if you’ve experienced abuse and/or neglect, but you say, “That had nothing to do with my choices?”  Perhaps you’ll want to consider the following facts:
Children who experience child abuse & neglect are 59% more likely to be arrested as a juvenile, 28% more likely to be arrested as an adult, and 30% more likely to commit violent crime.  (2009 Childhelp Info Center)

 You are not alone in your pain, or in your efforts to cope with a life that may have shattered by it.  Don’t you think it’s about time that you acknowledge the disappointments of your past and step bravely into a future filled with hope and a new beginning?



Today's post is by guest blogger, Linda Settles
Visit her website.
http://www.redeemingourtreasures.com/

Linda is an author and a friend of Hope Aglow Ministries. We are thankful for her wisdom and her desire to share with others the freedom she has found in Christ.

"I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts."  Psalm 119:45  NIV