Ive been hurting pretty bad. Yeah, it was a big loss to lose my job, but I can honestly say that its not what Im hurting about. Im hurting because of broken relationships....relationships that I actually care about and would give my left leg to heal.....but there is nothing I can do. Im a pretty selfish guy. Ive come to realize that more and more about myself. I was hurt a lot growing up by several different people. And I never quite got over that hurt. And I think that has allowed me to hurt others more easily. I have this place where I can get to where I can become entirely selfish...where I can hurt other people viciously because I have retreated into complete emotional isolation. I can say anything, do anything to hurt the other person without looking back.
Now I hurt others because I hurt...but I rarely ever allow myself to feel my hurt. I hate to feel it. I suppress it with anything I can get my hands on....music, alcohol, academics, friends, flirtation. Whatever is immediately available to me as a distraction I will readily use. But I dont spare others the same distractions. I hurt them when I want, and I hurt them without mercy, and I dont give a second thought to watching them hurt. I dont feel others' pain well. I am too busy suppressing and numbing my own.
I almost take pride in this as a kind of existential philosophy of life. I am always wrestling with the questions of my own existence, purpose, etc. That is the central question...the most important question.....who am I? Or where I am going? What happens to me when I die? Questions about the identity and purpose of others is secondary. It doesnt affect me as much. Ive got to watch out for #1. After all, who else will?
I hate this about myself. It has caused so much pain, not only in my life but in the lives of others. Just pain all around. I want to be able to fix it but I cant. I want to be able to reconcile but there is no hope for that. I want to be able to change. Its killing me. The irony is that my selfishness only leads to self-destruction. It doesnt do me any good. I just hurt others and hurt myself more.
I need to feel the weight of this. Its so hard to. I dont know why it has always been so hard for me to just break down and grieve over my sin. I always try to stay rational, to stay in some amount of control, to preserve some sense of all-rightedness. But I need to break over this. Ive caused some serious hurt to some people this year. Ive been incredibly selfish. I have not obeyed Christ's call to love, which is the very sign of being His disciple. I have cursed Christ and grieved His Spirit because of my lack of love.
Something happened to me a as a kid, not sure what, but I just kind of hardened. I went from being a very emotionally sensitive person (extremely so I am told) to being somebody who feels uncomfortable when i get emotional. Maybe thats a somewhat normal thing for guys to go through, but I think my case is a bit extreme for some reasons. Last night I cried...a lot...throughout the whole night. It was weird and hard and very unsettling. I had a pain in my stomach that wouldnt go away and wouldnt allow me to sleep. I just couldnt handle the idea that certain relationships just cant heal....that I can really destroy a relationship this side of the grave so much that it can never be restored. I think part of me wants to try to destroy relationships and then prove to myself that they can later be restored. I know that sounds kind of sick and weird, but I live in a family where all of the relationships have been destroyed to some degree and so I need to have hope that they can be restored. Therefore I am almost compelled to live out the same pattern in other relationships...destruction and restoration. I cant just settle in a relationship before the destruction phase because I know it has to come eventually. I feel compelled to get the destruction part over with and test God to see if He can actually restore it. I guess i just know I am prone to mess things up, and I need to know, in very extreme ways, that God wont let me mess things up so badly that they cant be fixed. And so I test God. I test Him to the limits, hurting and destroying relationships as much as possible, and then staring back at Him as if to say "Go ahead! See if you can fix that one!"
And when He doesnt fix it, I cast the blame on Him. Its so backwards. Rather than take full responsibility I blame God for not putting Humpty Dumpty back together again. I dont bear the weight of my sin. I dont fully take it in. I have caused this hurt to happen. And now the consequence is that I and others must hurt. And theres no easy way out of it. I do believe in the reconcilation of all things by Christ, but it is obvious that His reconciliation does not keep us from hurting here in the present and bearing the temporal consequences of walking over other people.
I dont know what to say. I am somewhat silenced. I want to hope so bad. There are things I still hope will happen that I have no reason to hope for, but its hard to kill hope sometimes as much as it is hard to kill hurt. I think hurt and hope persist with about as much furiosity. Neither are suppressed lightly.