What comes into your mind when you hear the phrase 'injured heart'? Maybe something physical? Or maybe you think it's something like a wounded, broken heart? Both are very painful, traumatic, and sad, and both have the possibility to heal.
Having an injured heart prevents you from functioning at your best. It gives you the feeling of discontentment and despair. It takes away your courage and faith. It brings you to a place you never wanna be in.
Now, I am not talking about the physical injury of the heart. I don't really know how to talk about physical injury of the heart. Let's talk about the emotional injuries of the heart in this article.
Offended Heart. The word offended itself, means that you got offended so deeply it made a mark in your heart. It may be something cruel that someone has done or said to you. Or something they didn't do or say.
Rejected Heart. There are many factors that we felt rejected. It may be the cause of verbal abuse, unfaithfulness, and/or lack of affection. These things make us feel rejected. Sexual and physical abuse can also be factors of rejected heart. Because we feel like we have been refused to be respected. We feel like we have been declined for love - for compassion - for caring.
Wounded heart. This is when we were deeply hurt. It can be either by someone else or by ourselves. The feeling of so much guilt. Guilty for knowing we hurt ourselves. Or the pain that someone has brought us. The trauma that wounds our hearts.
Rebellious Heart. It's when we got rebellious just to prove we are strong. That we were not hurt. That we are not hurt. There are times we think we are being strong by not doing what is told and doing the opposite of what is asked of us. But the truth is, we sometimes just hide behind our rebellious hearts. Sometimes, even if we know the right thing to do, we still choose to do the opposite just to prove something.
Unforgiving and Vengeful Heart. An unforgiving heart is when we can't find the courage to forgive the people that hurt us and we bury the pain inside and we seek revenge in any way on anyone. It's like, it doesn't matter if we hurt the person that hurt us or a different person as long as we hurt other people, we're fine with that.
Whatever injury we feel in our hearts, it is always the cause of something traumatic. So big we felt like we couldn't handle it. In which we become depressed and hungry to hurt other people or even ourselves.
However injured you feel your heart is, please know that it is not your fault. Your feelings are valid but it doesn't mean you have to live with it. There are people that care for you. There are people that are hurting when you're hurting. People that share your emotion even without you realizing it. And these people can be our motivation to come out and stand up again. Prayer is also a powerful tool to overcome these situations.
Our situation may seem like there's no hope. But let me tell you one thing. Hope is what's promised to us and peace will be given to those who have faith. :)