DARK CORNERS

From seeds of pain, they grew into a garden of sorrow and then thorns of bitterness sprang up in it. Have you ever been so pained?
We live in a world where people  deliberately hurt another and not feel a thing about it. Check around and you will bear witness to this wickedness; A friend turns betrayer, a father rapes his daughter, a lot of damages are caused daily and some of us happen to be victims of these acts.
In the previous post (A BEAUTIFUL ME) we took a stand against inferiority and depression. However, we cannot deny the fact that abuse, betrayal, hurt and different forms of pain of which we as teenagers are exposed to on a daily basis, can lead to inferiority,  depression, and also has the tendency to grow into unforgiveness and more dangerously, bitterness.
Why should anyone want to take advantage of innocence? Why should trust be betrayed and hearts stabbed in abuse? These are silent experiences some of us have been victims of, and more than just the experience, the memories we have to live with create even more hurt.
I sometime imagined how Joseph felt when it was finally clear to him that he was sold away by his own brothers.  How was he able to come to terms with his new reality of slavery, how did he justify his pain?
Some of us have been traumatized, ignored, betrayed, enslaved, hurt deeply even by our loved ones. And sincerely we do not know how to go about handling the memories and scars these experiences bring to our life's. We resent the offenders and sometimes even hate them , so how do we even think of forgiving them?
I know it's a lot  easier to get trapped in pain and regrets because that's the point where we are weak or even broken, that is when we are psychologically, emotionally or even physically drained, but we can also decide  whether to remain down or to hold on to the victory that is rightfully ours.
I feel the pain too, so I know it's not so easy to get up and stand strong after you've been deeply wounded. But the question is: do we really want to stay down forever? Do we want to live later years wishing somethings never happened? What if we decide to make ours a testimony of, "After all that happened I still prevailed" ?
One way to prolong our pain and suffering is to nurse them in our hearts and that's the devil's trick to lure us to destruction. When we hold fast to our pains, we give them space to breed and in a while, they become thorns that hunt us.
Our duty is not to ponder on our hurts, but to gain wisdom and let them go because holding on to them  can easily lure us to unforgiveness, anger, hatred and bitterness.
 We do not want go around with all these burdens or do we? We are created to live life to the fullness, and like a  garden  bearing much precious fruits, we should protect and guard our hearts. Unforgiveness and bitterness are like the thorns that seek to destroy the precious fruits of joy, peace, strength, love, they want to create dark corners in our hearts and keep us away from the freshness of light.
I know it's not easy to be healed, but the word of God can heal us, we can receive the word of life that has the viability to heal  broken hearts like ours.
You may have been thinking for too long about how to step out from your pain and stand strong to face life. The truth is we can't stand and face life on our own, we are all too weak to do that, but we can hold on to the perfect word that is able to sustain us.
 In Christ we find wholeness in Spirit, Soul and in body. In Him we bear precious fruits and my longing for you today is that you step into wholeness spiritually, emotionally, physically and in all areas of your life so you could be happy and productive teenagers.
Take a moment to hand over that pain today to the only one that can heal you. Let Him shine forth His light and let joy flow again from your inside.
I will love to hear from you. Share your worries and contributions about what you think about unforgiveness and bitterness. Let's learn and grow together.
Much Love.