How many of you have been hurt? Hurting from the heart, hurting from grief, hurting from physical pain, emotional pain, hurting from the heartbreak of others, hurting for others. There is so much hurt in the world. All kinds of hurt. Its a simple word. But a huge concept.
Colossians 3:13 reminds us to "Bear with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive."
People hurt each other. Here in America, we are overcome with gossip and painful feelings towards one another. People talk. People lie. People do bad things to each other. Its just one of those things you cannot seem to get rid of. But we, as Christians, need to remember to get over ourselves, quit gossiping, and quit hurting one another. I have witnessed best friends talking about each other then turning around hanging out with each other as if nothing ever happened in the first place.
This is all sin. This is not right. This is hurt. This is causing pain.
During Sunday night youth group, we were trying to teach the kids that once you say something negative to one another or towards one another, you simply cannot take it back. Just like how you cannot empty a whole tube of toothpaste and turn around and try to shove it all back in the tube. Its just impossible. Of course you can apologize and ask for forgiveness to whom you spoke about and to God, but you literally cannot take back the hurt. You cannot take back the words you said. People just need to think before they speak.. and that is extremely hard to do.
I think about all the hurt and pain that goes on within my group of friends and within my family and I have realized that most of the hurt and pain we have experienced has come from gossip, "he said she said," and just simply doing wrong to others.
Then I think about all the pain and hurt the people in Africa are experiencing. They are not experiencing the same hurt we are. They do not worry about what others think, or what someone is saying about them today, or what this girl did at a party last night and "Oh my gosh can you believe that?!?!" (...well maybe some of them are, but thats besides the point) They are hurting physically and emotionally. Most of the people in Africa are not getting enough food and water to survive. Did you know that every 15 seconds a child in Africa dies from something as preventable as dirty water? Can you just imagine that? I want you to imagine yourself walking miles and miles to a nearby mud lake infested with disease and germs. Now you have to fill up a bucket of water, place it on your head, and walk back to your house..... oh and don't forget its about 90 degrees outside and your head is pounding with this massive bucket. You drink this water, of course this is the only source of water available to you. Within 30 minutes you are throwing up. The water you just drank cannot stay down in your stomach. You are sick, in the hospital, and next thing you know you are dying.
Now, this is not the case for us over in America. But this is reality over seas. And all we have to do is walk downstairs, turn on the faucet and there you go... water at the tip of our fingertips.. fresh clean clear water within seconds.
So, no, the people half way across the world are not experiencing our hurt we are experiencing. Why are we so consumed with trash talking our best friends and worrying what others do around us and what they are saying about us? There are greater and deadlier issues we can worry about than talking about what Sally Sue wore out last night.
The bible tells us that “a perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends” (Proverbs 16:28). Why do we need to lose close friends over something as preventable as gossip, and why do the Africans need to physically lose each other over something as preventable as dirty water?
We can make a difference.
www.firstgiving.com/catherinelivesay
With love,
Catherine
