Its Not Fair...Sarah's words

Here is a post from the blog www.sarahmarkley.com. Check it out...I was very inspired by her story!!!

Monday September 21st, 2009

When I was first married, I though I needed to “teach” my husband that being hurt was never wrong because it was my personal feeling. And you can’t argue with a feeling.
And while that is partially true, it always turned out badly.
I’m hurt. What you said hurt my feelings.
You’re wrong. You can’t feel that. What I said was no big deal.
But I am hurt. And it’s just how it is. You can’t argue with that.
Frustration. Yelling. More arguing. Tears. Slammed doors.
And then this happened. And here we are today, having created new routines for communication and arguing.
We still hurt each other sometimes. Never intentionally any longer, but usually because we are tired or aren’t thinking of the other first. You know how it goes.
But hurt, big or little, sometimes feels safe. Like a bandaid. It feels good to wallow in it, feel like I deserve this hurt because the other person wounded me. I’m a victim…
A woman emailed me a couple weeks ago in response to my story and (with her permission) I’d like to share her take on hurt. Her husband has been unfaithful to her, has repented and they are now on the (slow) road to healing. She emailed me this about her own struggles with feeling hurt and wounded:
“I had an epiphany recently one evening while I was up late cleaning the house, of all things. I was dwelling on how angry I was that I had remained faithful and what good had it done me? Angry that I was being gracious and staying when I didn’t have to. Angry that my husband seems to get grace and mercy and I get to suffer and be ill treated. Just angry. And I was telling myself how the bottom line seemed to be that basically I loved [my husband] more than he loved me. And that knowledge really sucked. I kept thinking and thinking about how much it really sucked to be in a relationship where I so clearly loved someone more and better than they loved me. How utterly unfair.
“And then my head about spun off. Because I realized. I realized that EVERYTHING I just described was EXACTLY how God felt about us. About me. He loves me so much more than I love him. My goodness – he sent his son to DIE for me and I piss on that extravagance and grace every day I live and breathe.
“And for the first time in my life I felt a small portion of what the suffering of Christ feels like. I was invited into Christ’s sufferings. They are very very real to me now.
For years, my husband, Chad (the victim of MY unfaithfulness) has said this about feeling hurt or an it’s-not-fair attitude…
We lose the right to say “it’s not fair” until we’ve suffered as much as Christ has on the cross. When that happens, we gain the right to say “it’s not fair.”
Pain isn’t fair. Neither is adultery. Or people who hurt children. And death. And miscarriage. And lost jobs. Or abuse. None of it’s fair.
But neither was the cross.
Because He lived without sin. He deserved none of the burden he carried on the cross.
In my own marriage, I’m the one who committed the bigger HURT. I’ve been very open about that. And even last Friday when I wrote about some of my own pain (paling in comparison to others’). However moving forward includes a distinct giving of hurt over to Christ, allowing Him to help feel it for us, and gaining perspective that He has been hurt far worse by the sins of the world (and of each one of us) than we could ever feel.
I’m not saying we deserve the pain. Or that my husband deserved what I did to him.
But I am saying that Christ deserved none of it.
And that is where we find perspective on our own wounds.
What do you think? Do you wallow in hurt? Do you say “it’s not fair”? What do you think about Christ’s pain on the cross?