The phrase “Hurt people hurt people” is often cited to prompt those abusing others to question whether it’s hurt they’ve endured that is impelling their actions. But the phrase also can feel like a prophecy of doom to those who suffer abuse, as a testifier in this issue of the Sentinel explains. While the author didn’t inflict on others abuse similar to that which she had suffered, her life was clouded by the fear of doing so (see “Hurt people don’t have to hurt people”).

Removal of that fear didn’t come quickly, but it did come decisively. With remarkable spiritual clarity, she saw something completely counter to her memories. She saw that she had never truly been hurt. That’s not to say that her memories were inaccurate, but they were the record of a human past. Although that history had seemed substantial, she discerned an unbridgeable gap between that painful experience and what she’d always been as God’s spiritual offspring, which the Bible shows us we truly are. 

Her experience shows how prolonged challenges can be healed in an instant when we gain a clear recognition of the substantiality of Spirit, God, and the insubstantiality of anything that isn’t spiritual. Then we can feel the evanescent nature of our material history. The psalmist wrote of God, “A thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night” (Psalms 90:4).