Tag: self-harm

  • Cutting (self-injury)

    You may not realize that 20% of high-school and college students engage in the self-injuring practice of cutting. As this becomes more common, it also affects more marriages.

    Most of us have not purposely cut ourselves, but we have all experienced inner pain, and we have all searched for ways to relieve that pain. Although this is not my usual topic, I am sharing this today with the prayer that it will be helpful—perhaps to you or someone you know. 

    The Cutting that Cures

    God understands this pain
    of cutting.

    He knows this pain
    that cries
    with the voice of a knife.

    He feels this pain too heavy
    for words or tears
    alone
    to carry;
    the flesh must join.

    If only burdens
    would flow
    with blood.
    If only blades
    could strip sorrow
    as well as skin.¹

    This draining of the body
    leeches life from the soul.

    “Imago Dei”²
    is written upon us,
    yet we mar,
    not knowing
    the handwriting of God.

    *

    “Without the shedding of blood,
    there is no remission of sin.”³
    Without having heard,
    we seem to know.
    But we hope only
    for the remission of pain.

    Only God really knows
    how great is the loss and
    how deep is the pain.

    Through the tearing of His own flesh,
    He felt the torment of the whole world.
    With the gushing of His own blood,
    He marked the loss of love.

    He carried the weight of our suffering
    in His own body
    that we would not
    in ours.

    cutting

    Our pain became His pain,
    and His wounds became our healing.
    His brokenness
    bought our wholeness.

    There is, therefore, now
    no cutting
    for those who are in Christ Jesus,
    for there is now
    no condemnation and
    no separation.

    There is no loss
    that He will not accept as His.
    There is no emptiness
    that He cannot turn
    inside out
    into fullness.

    The only cutting
    that will ever put things back together
    was the crushing of Christ on the Cross–
    the tearing of a veil,
    and a new covenant cut.4

    “It is finished.”

    cutting

    With lavish love,
    He engraved our names
    forever
    on His palms.

    The scars of Christ,
    sealed on our souls,
    mark us now
    as His.

    cutting

    © 2016. Tami Myer.

    ————————————————————-

    1 In The Broken Way, Ann Voskamp writes that she cut herself as if “you could drain yourself out of pain” (Zondervan, 2016, page 11).
    2 This is the Latin phrase for “image of God.” Genesis 1:27 says that God created people in His own image.
    *By User:BardFuse (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
    3 From Hebrews 9:22. The Bible teaches that the consequence of our rejection of God (who is Life) is death.
    4 In English, we say that we make a covenant. But in the Hebrew language of Scripture, a covenant is “cut.”

    ———————————————————

    FOR HELP in overcoming cutting, please visit Focus on the Family’s website. Search “cutting,” and you will find a series of helpful articles.