The Pain of Ignoring Pain

We all have hurts and hang-ups that we carry through life. Sometimes those wounds are only superficial, and they heal quickly. Other times, those wounds penetrate our souls, and we carry them with us for many years. It is often very painful to deal with those issues, but the damage done if we ignore those issues is usually even greater. That pain festers under the surface like a sore that never quite heals correctly.

Here is one story of not dealing with the pain of a hurtful past. It is a true story. I know it to be true because it is my story. This writing is longer than my typical ones, but I trust its message will speak to someone. Someone just like me. So, here goes…     

My high school years were filled with much pain and isolation. I felt trapped. In hindsight, often self-inflicted. I have a speech impediment and during those years my speech was in my eyes what defined me. I struggled to feel accepted. I was relentless on the grass football field and on the cinder track to be the best, as if somehow that would help me gain acceptance. Again, in hindsight, very misguided, but at the time, I thought it was my best shot at gaining acceptance. In the yearbook, I even said that I disliked cheerleaders. I didn’t really dislike cheerleaders. I disliked that they had the popularity that I longed for.  

I was from time to time on the receiving end of harsh comments regarding my speech. I carried a lot of pain and hurt away from those years. After high school graduation I distanced myself from my classmates. I would bump into them from time to time, but the pain of those high school years was too great for me to deal with. So, I ignored it, I suppressed it, and it festered, for years.

Now fast forward three decades. My wife and I were just months away from moving from one state to another to plant a church when we attended a wedding, and to my surprise, sitting at our table at the reception was one of my high school cheerleader classmates. She mentioned that we were having another class reunion in a few months. I don’t remember what I said, but the water would have to part for me to even consider attending.

When we got home from the wedding, my wife said to me, “You need to go. Church planting is hard enough and you don’t need to drag unnecessary crap into it.” No way. Well, the water was about to part. Several days after attending that wedding, I was driving to work and began to cry as I thought about high school and the junk I was carrying with me. At that moment I knew I needed to go to the reunion. I had it all planned out. My wife would go with me and be my safety net. But no, she said I needed to go on my own.            

There was one particular classmate who had regularly mocked my speech. In fact, he was a football teammate and when I struggled with my speech while calling plays, he would make comments even then, in the huddle of all places! It never ceases to amaze me as to the lengths God goes to restore us. So, on the night of the reunion, I nervously walked alone into the event and as fate would have it, the very first person I saw was this particular classmate. My first thought, “You have got to be kidding me. I knew this was a bad idea.”

We said a few pleasantries and I quickly moved on. What happened next changed my life. This classmate came back to talk with me and said this, “Dave, I have waited all these years to tell you how badly I feel about the way I acted toward you in high school.” We shared a few more words and went on our way, me with tears streaming down my cheeks. It was at that very moment that my healing and forgiveness began. And until that moment, I never once thought that he carried any pain from those high school days. We’ve not seen each other since, but that is okay.   

I hope what you get out of this story is the importance of dealing with past hurts. Today, no matter how painful it might be, I encourage you to begin to deal with the “junk” in your life that is lurking under the surface. There is tremendous freedom that comes through forgiveness, honest reflection, and dealing with your “stuff.” Jesus came to bring us freedom, not just from eternal separation from God, but also freedom from the bondages that keep us locked up (Psalm, 118:5; Isaiah 61:1).

Right now, ask God to give you the courage and strength to work through those difficult issues that are festering under your skin.

I need to add this add this epilogue. Many of those classmates, including cheerleaders, I pushed away from are friends today. With maturity I now realize the “problem” was more with me than it was with them. I did not accept myself and superimposed that lack of acceptance of me (by me) upon them. I was asking of them something they could never give me – freedom from my internal bondage to such a stupid thing as a speech impediment. It is God who has freed me up to be the person I am today, still with a speech impediment. That encounter (used by God) at a class reunion didn’t hurt either.  

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