Had my first class today called “Spirituality, Ministry, and Human Rights Abuse Survivors.” There was a particular thought that came to me during one of our reflections that I want to write down (I first wrote this in my personal journal), and I thought I’d share them here, too.

I was thinking about the idea of pain and vulnerability. Pain – the kind of deep-seated pain that sits at the core of our being and eats away at us, whether caused by some external event like abuse, or is less explicable – is something deeply personal, and so most of the time we are very guarded about opening ourselves up to others about it, not only because it can re-open the wound, but also because it gives away something that we have come to think of as our very own. Healing can take place, however, when we find those persons whom we can truly trust and with whom we can feel safe and vulnerable, and thus invite them into that place of pain, and they can accompany us through it towards healing. Ultimately this can happen best in prayer, when we invite Christ into that place, and He walks with us and heals us.

But that last part I just thought of now. What I was thinking of in class was that there can also be an effect that pain and suffering has on us where it sort of distorts our sense of self-worth so greatly that we actually want to experience further pain, because we come to think it’s what we deserve. Sharing our pain with others gives them great power, and I think when we come to this place of diminished self-worth, we can actually be less guarded about sharing, we become more liberal in giving the power of our experience of pain to others, because we are actually hoping that they will use it to hurt us more. We open the wound, and then give them the knife to stick it again, and again, and again. It is a truly vicious cycle, and can be terribly difficult to stop. It can only stop when someone finally shows us the beauty that we thought was lost, the beauty within us that is founded on our being children of a loving God, our being created by the grand and compassionate Artist. When we can see ourselves through the eyes of Christ, we can finally see the beauty that is intrinsic to our humanity. Then we can finally stop the cycle of self-inflicted pain, and we can stop inviting others to hurt us, too.

I think this also opens me up to the awareness of how important it is for me, for us, to be agents of Christ in helping others see how beautiful they are, and to be attentive and intentional about not being destructive in our words and actions, because there are going to be some persons out there who, unknown to us, are indeed caught up in this cycle, and our destructiveness only feeds their sense of ugliness. But there is a tremendous opportunity then to be agents of healing, to walk with others along the path of healing, and to open their eyes to a beauty that they had ceased to believe was ever real.