It’s very interesting how things come about. I was in my closet last night and saw my backpack. Instantly, I thought, “Get out your Wild at Heart Book.” ❤️ I got it out and set it on the kitchen counter to look at this morning.
I open it up, and inside the cover, I write notes and page numbers. This one particular note said page 106 good paragraph, so I opened it up and began to read
Psalms 109:22 (ESV) 22 For I am poor and needy,
and my heart is wounded within me.
God is fiercely committed to you, to the restoration and release of your masculine heart. But a wound that goes unacknowledged and unwept is a wound that cannot heal. A wound you’ve embraced is a wound that cannot heal. A wound you think you deserved is a wound that cannot heal. That is why Brennan Manning said, “The spiritual life begins with the acceptance of our wounded self.” Really? How can that be? The reason is simple: “Whatever is denied cannot be healed.” But that’s the problem, you see. Most men deny their wound—deny that it happened, deny that it hurt, certainly deny that it’s shaping the way they live today.
Over the years, I have come to realize that my parents are who they are, and I can not change them. I can only change myself. When I came to that realization, the way I viewed my parents changed. For so long, in some ways, that was my identity on how my parents treated me, especially my mom. Our phone conversations generally only last 2 to 5 minutes.
The other day, we actually had a 20-minute conversation. In the middle of this conversation, she said this. “Kevin, I just want to tell you how proud I am of the man that you become and who you are.”
So much healing in that statement.
It is so easy to hold on to stuff and not even understand that is what you’re doing. You don’t even realize that your whole identity is wrapped up in whatever the wound is.
You are stuck in a false identity.
You could have made a very bad decision years ago, and it still haunts you to this day. It could have been a death in your family it could have been a divorce. I have been through both of these. I think a good sign that you haven’t dealt with your stuff or your wound is that you keep bringing it up in every conversation even when it’s not warranted. You want people to know about your deepest wound
You are only as sick as your secrets
Do you have a wound that you have not embraced? Do you have a wound that you think you deserve?
I’m digging in to see if there are any more wounds that I need to deal with.
This is the 1st step from the AA book. Step 1 We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
I never thought about this until just now, but it would be so easy to take out the word alcohol and put in the word “wound” in its place. My opinion some wounds are so deep that they do cause your life to be unmanageable because your life becomes your identity in your wound.
If nothing changes, then nothing changes.
Matthew 6.6 