Wound

Sometimes, in the Korean drama, I see a woman who is wounded by her boyfriend cries in tears.  I also see a man who is wounded by his girlfriend drinks until he gets drunk.  My wife, who was looking at the drama, told me once or twice that she couldn’t understand.  The reason is because when we were dating for six months until we got married, there was no time for us to have conflicts and fights.  It was because we met in the early morning and dated until night and we had no time to fight and wound each other.  That is why it is more my own subjective view rather than from experience to think about the wound that are exchanged in the dating relationship.  However, I cannot help but to consider the subject of “wound” in the dating relationship because I see, hear and feel myself that they are couples around me who are wounded in their dating relationship.  So I just want to talk about the subject “wound” carefully so that at least we can think about it and struggle with it so that we may not wound each other in our relationship.

                I am sure there are a lot of wound in the dating relationship.  The shedding of tears in pain will be a natural result of the wound.  Therefore, people who know this (whether in knowledge or through experience) will control their romance well or control it and will not make a dating relationship quickly.  There may be a case in which a single woman or man do not even start the dating relationship even though s/he has someone whom s/he feel romance because s/he is wounded before.  Of course hurt is not the only reason.  But what is certain is that no one likes to be wounded.  That’s why those single men and women who are afraid of getting hurt in relationship and are cautious, they will not get into dating relationship hastily.

                When I was in college, I had secret crush on a girl who was younger than me.  I do not know why I liked her.  I was then overwhelmed by the romantic feeling on her so I had to suppress it for a year (few people even joked that I look young now compare to when I was in college. Haha).  So when I graduated from college, three freshmen girls wrote on my yearbook ‘grandfather’.  I had hard time suppressing my feeling toward her and also trying to avoid her because we were at the same Christian club.  So even when I saw her at the Christian club once a week, I had to act naturally and tried to treat her as a sister in Christ.  But thankfully (?) I did not know what happened to me but the one-sided crush on her for a year ended.  It was really a one-man show.  Haha (I can laugh at now but then ... haha).  Those single men or women who are like me, having a secret one-sided crush will have a lot of heart trouble.  It is not easy at all if they go to the same church, are in the same small group, and even go to short-term mission together.  But I personally think that it is good to be careful not to wound each other.  Of course, I am not against those young men who courageously reach out to a girl who they fell in love with and try to express their love for her.  But I think it is good to be careful not to be stumbling block to other church members.  I am sure some people who read writing may or may not agree with what I said.  I understand and it is okay.  There are some men who want to courageously confess their love to the girls whom they love even though the girls may reject them.  I did too because I only had secret crush on three girls).  I still remember after I graduated from college, I approached one of those three sisters in Christ and shared my feeling towards her instead of keep on concealing it and suppressing it.  She followed me well as a big brother in Christ even after we graduated from college.  So when I was serving in my church and asked her to help our church vacation bible school, she gladly helped me and my church.  At that time, one elementary kid thought that we were dating. Haha.  Since we had been seeing so often and serving together in the church, I guess there was romantic feeling in me.  So one day, I just went near her house, parked my car and just stayed inside the car for a while.  And I thought about whether to call her up and tell her to come out or not so I could confess my feeling to her.  Finally, I took the courage, called her up and asked her to come out.  At that time, I prayed and made my mind that if she said ‘No’ after I confessed my emotion to her, then I would accept it as God’s will and not to pursue the relationship.  After all, she was "No" and I felt miserable.  But as I was heading home, I called her and said ‘Thanks for saying no to me.’  The reason is because I couldn’t control my felling and confessed my feeling to her without any conviction in the Lord.  Actually, when she said ‘No’ at that time, my heart was comfortable.

                After all, when I look back at that time and look at some of the people around me now, I think it is mainly I "give" wound to the other person first and then I am wounded in the attempt to have relationship with the opposite sex.  Of course, we tend to sympathy that we are wounded rather s/he is wounded.  Maybe one of the reasons is that we fall into (extreme) victim mentality when we are wounded.  In the end, in such victim mentality, our heart is being filled increasingly with resentment and hatred toward the opposite sex who has wounded us.  It seems that this hurt eventually dominates all our reason, emotion and will and turns it into despair or anger toward the other person.  It is a scary consequence.  The more scary thing is that there can be resentment and anger toward God as well.  So not only that we may close our hearts to other person but to God as well.  Like this, the wound from the dating relationship cane be fetal.  It can make us to give up even our souls.  Since the consequences from the dating relationship is very serious, I want to think about wound based on the Scripture.  Although I don’t know much about it, I would like to write say few things.

                The first thought is of course Jesus' wound.

Of course, when we are wounded in a dating relationship we may only think about our sound instead of the wounds of Jesus.  But if God is gracious to us and if we can deliberately think about the wounds of Jesus, then we should think about why Jesus was wounded on the cross.  The reason is because Jesus was wounded for us instead.  Of course, the Jesus’ wounds are different from our wounds from our dating relationship.  In our dating relationship, we are wounded “because of” each other and not “for” each other or “instead of” each other.  If we can have this kind of wound in our dating relationship, then I think this kind of relationship is something higher than normal dating relationship that is pursuing the higher love that is love of Jesus

            The second thought is "wound capacity".

Jesus was wounded for us.  Then, shouldn’t we be wounded on behalf of our loved ones?  If we can be wounded instead of them, then I think it is truly marvelous or mature love of the Lord.  However, too many dating relationships seem to be absurdly lacking in capacity to be wounded for or on behalf of the others.  Of course, some people can say that they are wounded for or instead of their loved ones.  However, it is doubtful how much such a wound can be accommodated.  Furthermore, I think we may be in the illusion that we cannot really see whether it is the wound capacity that is worthy of the Lord or the wound that we deserve.

            The third thought is the word "healing".

I think about how it is possible for the wound to be wrapped and healed.  Of course, the Bible says God heals us.  In particular, when we look at Psalms 147:2, I think the Lord heals our broken wounds first and then heals our external wounds.  However, considering the Lord's healing, I wonder how the Lord heals the broken-hearted.  I think the Lord heals with the love of Heavenly Father that is greater, wider and deeper than romantic love.  Only by the love of Heavenly Father can we heal the wounds we have in our dating relationship.  Just as the bigger ocean covers the stream, when God’s greater love covers our wounds from relationship, God’s healing begins.  

In the process of dating, there can be deep and wide wounds from separation.  Then we can dislike everything even our beloved ones, and our God.  And we can give up on us.  But God never give up on us who are wounded and will never let us go.  Rather, He is our Heavenly Father, who is searching for us and come near to us who are wounded to hug us in the arms of His love, His sons and daughters who are wounded, whom He considered precious and honor.  When we throw ourselves in the arms of the Lord, when we are in the arms of Jesus on the cross and when we touch His scars in faith, our wounds will be healed.