Some time ago I encountered a young woman who had cuts all over her forearms. She had been wearing long sleeves to cover the evidence but had pulled the sleeves up to wash her hands and another girl noticed who encouraged her to get help for the issue. In talking she revealed that she had started cutting herself over a year earlier and the reason was shocking to me. She shared that her 
parents fought all the time at home, and each was constantly trying to get her to take their side. She didn’t know how to cope with the constant conflict and felt like she was a rope in a tug of war between her parents. She began coping by going to her room and listening to loud music to cover the sound of arguing. One day when she went to her room to escape the battle in her home, she accidently cut herself and when she saw her own blood, she passed out.
The innocence of this initial event is striking because it was certainly unintentional, however the next time she retreated to her room she cut herself on purpose to achieve the escape that she had experienced. One cut became another and before she realized it, she was cutting herself multiple times daily even though the escape of passing out had stopped occurring. The escape had turned into a habit, and in some ways, an addiction. As I began to research this phenomenon, I found that her story was common. As a matter of fact, though it is not always accidental, many cutters are looking to either escape or find a relief of their circumstances, or to find an outward physical manifestation of the inward pain that they feel. For some, cutting began as a way to punish themselves for not being stronger or for being unable to deal with the issues of life that they face.
The reality of this is becoming epidemic in our culture. To be sure, a large part of our population carries huge burdens of emotional pain that they are unable to deal with. This is not a new problem, but it is increasingly alienating people from society and causing permanent damage to their bodies and lives. I have good news to interject at this point though: there is a better way to deal with emotional pain than the escape that you have been seeking from your problems. The way to deal with emotional pain is given in the Bible in Psalm 55. In verses 4 and 5, it says, “My heart is sore pained within me: and the terrors of death are fallen upon me. Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me.” David himself experienced emotional pain. In another passage he says, “Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me; for I am desolate and afflicted. The troubles of my heart are enlarged: O bring thou me out of my distresses. Look upon mine affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins (Psalm 25:16-18). Can you identify with David? Are the troubles of your heart enlarged? Do you wish that someone could see your pain and help you, but you’re afraid to make yourself vulnerable to them?
Emotional pain is a terrible prison that traps us in shame and guilt. You may feel that it is your fault, that others would not understand if they found out and that they would judge you. These feelings cause many to dive further into the darkness and leads to other attempts to escape the pain that may include substance abuse or suicide. Going further into the darkness will not help you deal with the emotional pain, but there is hope.
David experienced the same desire to escape his pain. He says in verses 6-8, “And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest. Lo, then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness. Selah. I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest.” Does that seem like a familiar feeling? The desire to just escape, to run away and escape the craziness of the storm that is raging in your heart and mind is not strange, everyone experiences this at times. It is important that you understand that you are not odd or weird; you are very normal and identifying with others will help you find acceptance and help.
The Bible explains what the source of this emotional pain is. David says in verses 12-14, “For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him: But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company.” It wasn’t a stranger or an enemy that caused David’s pain, no, it was someone close to him, an authority in his life, someone he loved and trusted.
Many times, the greatest pains can only be caused by those who are close enough to know our most vulnerable times. These hurts are called the ABCs of emotional pain. This pain may come through Abuse, either verbal, physical or sexual. The pain may come through Betrayal, many times it is harder to forgive someone who should have protected you than the person who actually hurt you. Betrayal can come from an authority, a friend or someone you are romantically open with. The third area that this pain can come from is Conflict, either direct conflict or constant conflict between people that you love. This conflict wears on the heart and mind. Many children are in constant turmoil because of fighting between their parents and they have a great amount of insecurity because of the fear that their parents will divorce. There are other things that can cause emotional pain such as Death or Disease. These are the biggest of the things that I have found people struggling with.
The good news starts here: once you have identified the issue and the source, you can now deal with it. David is a great example of someone who was able to deal with the emotional pain that he was experiencing. There are two things that are necessary to stop the cycle of emotional pain in your life. David says in verses 16-18, “As for me, I will call upon God; and the LORD shall save me. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice. He hath delivered my soul in peace from the battle that was against me: for there were many with me.” Then in verse 22, he says, “Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.” The first step to dealing properly with emotional pain is to realize that you need an outlet for the pain, not an escape from it.
If you have ever been to a manmade lake, you will find that on one side there is an inlet that flows into the area, and on the other side, there is a dam to hold the water in place. The ways that you have been trying to deal with your emotional pain are like that dam, you haven’t dealt with it, you have just allowed it to build up behind the dam of escape. Creating an outlet for your pain was created by God with you in mind. David found that he was able to pour out his pain to God and stop allowing it to build up behind the dam of escape. The Bible talks about prayer as cleansing, pouring out your heart to God is purifying to the soul. God knew also that it would be hard for you to do this without seeing someone else that you could identify with who had experienced emotional pain as well.
It is often said that music is an expression of the soul, and I believe that is true. I have sometimes heard music that I couldn’t identify with at all, wondering what others see in it. Then I realized that the music was expressing something in them that they didn’t otherwise know how to express. The music was reflecting the pain or anger that was in their souls. The problem is that it frequently begins by finding relief in such expression but then they begin to reflect more and more the negative aspects of that pain or anger as they listen more to the music that initially they saw as identifying. God also knew that we would need a place to find identification with the inward feelings that we could not express. He gave us three entire books of songs called the Psalms, Song of Solomon, and Lamentations. These books contain an expression of the full range of emotions that we will ever have, from extreme joy, to romance, to bitterness, anger, and pain. In Psalm 109, David even expresses to God that he wished that the man who hurt him would die, that his whole family would die, and that their house would be covered with manure, and many other things as well.
Did you know that God already knows what feelings are in your heart? You won’t shock Him and He won’t judge you for your feelings. God wants you to pour all your pain out to Him and find the cleansing that you desire. If you have trouble starting, then read through the song books of the Bible until you find a place that reflects back the pain or emotions that you have inside, use that as a starting point of identification to being the process of prayer, and just tell God all about how you have been wronged and how you feel. Pour it out and pour it out until it drains the reservoir of pain that has built up.
The second step in dealing with the emotional pain is to cut off the inlets that have been bringing it in. It is not possible to drain the reservoir as long as you are still allowing the pain to come in. To do this, you must turn the offender over to God in your heart. This is what David expresses in verses 19-21: “God shall hear, and afflict them, even he that abideth of old. Selah. Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God. He hath put forth his hands against such as be at peace with him: he hath broken his covenant. The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords.” In verse 23 he says, “But thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction: bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days; but I will trust in thee.”
Turning them over to God in your heart means that you must take their offences to God and accept that only He can truly give justice to your offender. I know that it may seem as though they have gotten away with what they have done, but I promise you that the only way real justice will come to them is through God. God doesn’t always punish people immediately, sometimes He gives people grace to repent for what they have done, but if they do not repent He always gives justice for their sins.
This also does not mean that you should sit around and watch, waiting for their judgment. If you do this, you are still trapped by their offences. Instead God calls you to take the offence to Him and accept that He is able to cover it for you at the cross of Jesus Christ. This is the essence of forgiveness. The Bible says in Ephesians 4:31-32, “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
Anger, bitterness, the desire to get vengeance for your pain, or hurt those who have hurt you will not make you feel better. God says that instead we should put these things away and He has given us a way to do that. He says that we can remove these self-destructive feelings by forgiving others and then He tells us how. God has made provision to forgive sin through allowing Jesus Christ to die on the cross. The Bible tells us that the penalty for sin is death and Jesus died for all sin. Jesus died for the sins that you would commit and the sins that would be committed against you. God accepts the payment that Jesus made for sin and He says that by doing the same thing yourself you can forgive others for the wrongs that you have endured. Carrying around the pain that they have inflicted by their sins only hurts you.
Remember that God has forgiven you because of Christ. God does not look to see if you deserve forgiveness for your sin, He simply chooses to forgive based upon the sacrifice of Christ for you. Likewise, you don’t need to worry about if they deserve to be forgiven, they don’t deserve forgiveness any more than you or I do. Forgiveness is not about whether someone deserves it, it is about me not carrying their burden any longer, it is not as much about them as it is about you.
Let me clarify that forgiveness doesn’t mean that you are saying that what they did is ok–it of course wasn’t ok! That is why Jesus died to pay the price for what they did. Forgiveness is saying that you accept the payment of Christ over the offence. Secondly, forgiveness is not saying that they have the right to hurt you again. As a matter of fact, if they haven’t repented of what they have done, then you should not restore your relationship with them. God has chosen to forgive all sin in Christ but we don’t have a restoration of our relationship with Him until we repent and turn to Him to accept His forgiveness. Forgiveness and repentance are opposite sides of the coin of restoration.
There is a way for you to relieve the pain that you have bottled up and to move on with your life if you will accept God’s answers for your situation and act in faith.