What can we learn when we feel hurt by something someone said or did to us?

Friday, October 18, 2013

Dealing with angry words, hurts, and slights
Once again we have some wise words from Elizabeth Nordquist’s blog, A Musing Amma on the Patheos website.  She writes, “After what we see daily in political brawls and Church confrontations splashed across the media, social and anti-social, we can conclude that civility and manners have nearly disappeared. Moreover, the early Church had its fair share of infighting and conflict. Hence, we have that word to the wise in Galatians that warns that to ‘bite and devour each other’ will lead to a ripping of the fabric of the community altogether. So, what to do when the disagreements become personal, ad hominem, unfair, and painful?”  She points out that this happens to all of us at one time or another; we feel hurt and slighted by the words or actions of a friend, family member, or someone from our community of faith— perhaps even from a stranger. Or maybe we’ve caused hurt to someone else.  It happened in the early church, too, as she reminds us.  So how do we react?  And is there something we can learn from such experiences?  I think you’ll appreciate what Elizabeth has to say.

Letha Dawson Scanzoni is an independent scholar, writer, and editor, and is the author or coauthor of nine books. In 1978, she and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott wrote Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?, one of the earliest books urging evangelical Christians to rethink their views on homosexuality (updated edition, 1994, HarperOne). More recently, Letha coauthored (with social psychologist David G. Myers) What God Has Joined Together: The Christian Case for Gay Marriage (HarperOne, 2005 and 2006). Another of Letha’s most well-known books is All We’re Meant to Be: Biblical Feminism for Today, coauthored with Nancy A. Hardesty (Word Books, 1974; revised edition, Abingdon, 1986; updated and expanded edition, Eerdmans, 1992). Letha served as editor of Christian Feminism Today in both its former print edition (EEWC Update) and its website for 19 years until her retirement in December 2013.

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