Imagine the following: A friend meets you for lunch. You notice that his right shoulder is drooping. He reaches out to greet you with his left hand rather than the right “hand shaking” hand. The right arm hangs lifelessly at his side. As he sits down, you cannot ignore an acrid odor, obviously emanating from your friend. As he wriggles into the restaurant booth, you observe a knife sticking out of the back of his right shoulder! Astonished, you ask him what happened.
Your friend is puzzled at first, but then explains “Oh that? Yeah. Isn’t that a bummer? I went to the Red Wings game last week and got mugged. The guy stabbed me.” Flabbergasted, you stutter, “That’s terrible, but why are you walking around with the knife still in your back? And what’s that smell?”
“Gangrene,” your friend reports. “I don’t mean to knock small town hospitals, but I’ve been busy, and I finally got around to going to the ER yesterday. The doctor told me that they are probably going to have to amputate my right arm due to the rotting flesh. Can you believe what butchers these medics are? Predictably, you point out that the possible loss of the limb is due to his delay in going to the ER in a timely fashion. Your friend then becomes indignant and asserts “I didn’t ask to get mugged! How can you blame me for this?
My readers, at this point, must be wondering what this newsletter could possibly be about. But stick with me. Don’t cancel your free subscription yet! Let’s think about this.
Of course, my example is preposterous. No sane man or woman would ever walk around with a knife jammed in his shoulder for days. But do we walk around with a verbal or behavioral knife stuck in us for days? For weeks? Months? Even years?
Think of an offense we have experienced in the past. Perhaps it was intentional, or maybe it was an inadvertent “wound.” No matter – you were hurt by it. Like a mugger stabbing you with a knife, your friend or acquaintance administered a hurt to you. So what do you do?
In my admittedly fractured analogy, we would have the mugger’s blade removed from us as soon as possible. We would obviously recognize that, although we were not responsible for the injury, it would be up to us to have it treated. And, of course, we would want to do so for our own sake. We would never believe that we were “getting back” at the mugger by leaving the dagger buried in our shoulder.
Hopefully, the point of my story is coming home. In our next newsletter, we will elaborate on the concept of forgiveness. But in the meantime, consider “wounds” that you have experienced in the past, recent or distant days or years ago.
Then do the following: Extract the knife! (to be continued next week)