Hurts

We all get hurt sometimes. Someone hurt you, maybe yesterday, or a week ago, maybe long time ago and you cannot forget it. You did not deserve that hurt. It has deeply lodged in your memory where it keeps hurting.

Really you are not alone. Lots of people, including yours truly have this experience. A friend betrays us, a relative makes a caustic remark, someone you love shouts at you for no reason. The only way to stop this stream of painful memories is to forgive. It is not always easy is it? Our sense of fairness tells us that these people should pay for the wrong they do. But forgiving can result in miraculous healing and even reconciliation.

Here is a prayer written by retired General John Gowans. I want to make this my prayer.

Hurts
"I'm glad I can forget
All kinds of things,
Life's hurts and harms,
Its unexpected things.
I contemplate
My bruises for a while
And then I let them go again.

But when I nurse
Some special wound or woe,
And stubbornly
Refuse to let it go,
Prise from my fingers
What might fester there,
And cleanse my mem'ry
Of encrusting care.

It may prove rather painful
But I'll be
A cleaner, saner,
Nobler me!"