Wounds

John Eldredge's Wild At Heart has often been placed second to the Bible when talking about the impact and power a book can have. While I see many faults and evidences that it was written by human and not God, it does have a lot of powerful ideas in it. One of these deals with wounds, and how every man receives a wound at some point in his journey of growing up. Starting with Adam at the fall, we see that every man has a struggle, has something that if he doesn't come to grips with, will ruin his life and ruin the creation of the man he was supposed to be. So when I was asked to write a paper about my wounds, I was a little terrified. Wait, I have to talk about this? I have to identify what's actually going on here, what my greatest wound is? I didn't think I could do that, and the wound itself was trying to keep me from talking about it. [Anyone who has read previous posts probably knows where this is going.] So here we go...

I don't really know how to identify the major wound/wounds in my life. I do feel like I have never been willing to trust anybody completely, to the point where I would open up my heart and pour it out to them. I've always had this feeling of security in knowing that no one else really knows what I'm going through; this is not on a day-to-day "stresses of life" level. People can know all about the things I struggle with on the outside. Internally, however, I have never felt like I can share with anyone what I'm really going through. I can tell somebody, "I'm struggling in my relationships right now," but not tell them how I truly feel. I feel much more safe in the knowledge that no one else around me knows what I'm really dealing with. So I've created myself into the person that I want other people to see. Don't look at the broken, completely independent Corey. Look at the one that plays soccer, is on Student Council, and tells a funny joke every now and then. Lord, don't let anyone see what I'm really going through, because that Corey might not be liked by some/most people. My security comes from having a spot on the team and having friends to kill time with. I don't know that I'll ever be able to trust somebody to the point of opening up completely to them, revealing what my struggles really are. I don't understand it, but somehow God can truly love the real Corey, the Corey that no one knows lives inside of me.

So, where to go from here? I'm working on it.

What about you? What is your "wound", as Eldredge calls it? Identifying it is pretty easy.

Dealing with it? Now there's a challenge...