Healing the Hurt of our Words

That is sad indeed.

Recently, a dear friend accused me of lacking faith because I’m not completely physically healed. That deep hurt inspired this prayer.

Loving and merciful heavenly Father, we pray for those who criticize others for lacking faith if someone isn’t healed either physically or emotionally. They have been exposed to some harmful theology to themselves and those they inflict it upon. I have had to deal with such people all of my life. In all frank honesty, I’m sick and tired of it.

Some have said I should have a thicker skin. I should let the words of others spoken without due thought roll off of me like water off of a duck’s back. I wish I could say I had arrived there for my own sake, but I’m not there yet. If no advice even if given with a well-meaning spirit bothered me, I would have become less of a person. Constructive criticism doesn’t always feel like it will build us up. There are so many times when the weight of the words from those we trust feels like it will break us down.

Why is it that so many equate disability with a faulty and flimsy faith? My physical challenges don’t make me any less of a person. In fact, I have had many tell me that I have become a better person, a kinder and more sensitive person because of them. Father, if I had never been ill, hadn’t been intubated 10 times for anaphylactic attacks, never suffered the daily pain that comes with having the extremely rare condition of mastocytosis, I think I would have become a more insensitive person, If I had never been physically and emotionally abused by my schizophrenic father and others, I doubt if I would have the same degree of understanding of those who have been abused. I wouldn’t have as much compassion for those who can’t hold up under life’s pressures, the seemingly unrelenting stress that has become an international epidemic in our lives. Father, You know that I have cried out to You every day for complete healing. There are nights I have gone to sleep crying because the cross You call me to carry has been for far too many decades. If those who judge the disabled knew how they assail the gates of Heaven for healing, if they saw the silent suffering of us all, if they could feel for even one day what we endure 24/7, I wonder would they be so quick to cast aspersions on our character or faith? Would they then say we are deficient or lacking in moral fiber?

In my humanity, I would like to punch those who say my faith is weak because I’m not completely healed and then ask, “Oh, that hurt? If you had more faith being hit wouldn’t cause you any pain.” Father, we are told to pray for those who harm and use us. You call us to love one another as Your one and only Son loved us, and gave Himself as a ransom for many. By Christ’s stripes, we are supposed to be healed. This begs the question Why do You heal some and not others? Your greatest saints of holy faith weren’t always healed here. Often, I think when the injury done to them was so great, it required a heavenly healing. There are those filled with so much anger, so much bitterness towards Christians who unleash their destructive tongues without thinking, Do they think they are morally superior because they deem themselves to have hold of a greater truth? We are all sinners. We all fall short. We all get it wrong. We all blow it. Yet, You give us Your grace, love undeserved yet freely given that is so liberating to our spirits so worn down by well-meaning people and those who have deliberately and with premeditation sought to abuse us either physically, emotionally, and sexually.

All of us whether we believe in You or not or are searching need to think before we speak. In the book of James, we are told that our words can speak life or death. Protect us from those who speak before they think. Forgive us when we speak out of our humanity and harm others with our words or acts of retribution. Oh, Father, there are times when we would be better to remain silent! We need to take our anger towards others to You. Save us from unleashing our rage at others. Give us the words to say to that person who has deeply wounded us with their words and./or actions. We pray for inner healing from those who hit us with the stinging arrows of their judgment when all our emotional barriers are down.

There is a difference between confronting a person in love about their behavior and heaping accusation. We don’t have the right to judge anyone. That is Your department, not ours. Father, give us the knowledge that when we have been cruel we own up to it, say it to the one we have hurt. Let not the sun go down on our anger lest we should live in misery, and fail to see the truth that even that one, especially that family member, friend or colleague who has hurt us with their ill-thought words, that dearly beloved soul needs Your love and our prayers.

The injury so deeply embedded will take time to heal. There are those times when the torture is so severe that I think, Father, heavenly medicine in Heaven, is required for complete inner healing.

We heal the hurt of our words and actions as we are honest with You and those we have injured.

Amen.

Dr. Kevin James Osborne Psy.D., D.Sc., D.D., is the Vice-President of Institutional and Mission Development for St. James the Elder University. He is a chaplain with Holy Catholic Church International. Dr. Kevin Osborne feels God is leading him to study more about theology, music, writing, and counseling. Dr. Karen Osborne D.Sc. in Psychology is a counselor and a writer. Our mission field is wherever God puts us for His glory. Below, is our counseling website. If you feel we can help you, we are only a phone call away at 1-705-316-0725. You can reach us also by emailing us at [email protected] or

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Below, is the link to our counseling website.

https://www.youcanhopeagaincounselling.com/