Someone wronged me. Now what?

Dealing with Hurt

How do you deal with someone who has hurt you? You didn’t do anything wrong and he still treated you that way. Whether it’s a colleague or a close relationship, you experience suffering when someone has hurt you.

Let’s say someone from your workplace said something to you that was hurtful and flat out wrong. You feel attacked. You’re not sure what to do. “Should I quit?!” Many different thoughts might cross your mind. In the midst of these thoughts, you start feeling anxious, potentially losing your appetite. When you’re back home you stop caring about things you used to care about. Now you feel depressed.

You respond to present (and future) suffering by self-protecting. “I just don’t want to go through this (again) with this person (or with anyone).” When there is suffering we tend to protect ourselves from potentially experiencing the same thing.

Being Like Jesus and Needing Jesus

Growth as a Christian, generally speaking, happens in a couple of ways: learning to be like Jesus and learning to need Jesus. Learning to be like Jesus is learning to love your neighbor and learning to love God. Sometimes (not all the time) when you self-protect, you also protect yourself from being like Jesus; you may love people very infrequently now.

When you are suffering, because you have been wronged, you learn to need Jesus. Suffering has you in a place to grow slowly. I'll say it again, by growing slowly. This happens not by doing or being better, but by needing Jesus. Over time, the more you begin to function as needing Jesus, the less you self-protect. In other words, you begin to see that 'needing help' is a son or daughter of God thing, and not a bad nor less-than thing. As a Christian, you grow into needing help, and never grow out of it. In fact, Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the "Helper" in John 16:8.

In conclusion, you can go into your workplace again. Remember, when you need help it does not necessarily mean anything is off. You are made to need help from God. You (slowly) get to be like Jesus and you get to need Jesus.

If you struggle with anger, frustration, bitterness, and resentment, when things go wrong for you, then Cowtown would love to help. Learn more by getting help for anger.

Cowtown Christian Counseling serves Fort Worth with relationship counseling from a Christian perspective. Check out more of our relationship and family blogs.