How To Heal, Part 1.

"I often meet people who aren't part of a church and don't want anything to do with God because of 'all those religious hypocrites.' Often they have great pain that they blame on 'the church.' But it is not possible for an institution, whether it's a church or a school or a business or even the government, to hurt somebody.

Institutions are made up of people.

People hurt people.

Somebody in this group hurt somebody in that group. Somebody at that school or in that office wronged somebody else. And they haven't done the work to apologize and make amends and work though it. When I meet someone who has been burned by an institution, my first question is, "What was the person's name?"

We'll never heal until we can identify who did what when. Only then can we begin the process of being set free."

From the book Sex God by Rob Bell. (I, the owner of this blog, haven't actually read the book. I took the quote from someone's profile page on another site.)



After reading that, I don't quite understand what I need to do. Obviously, I need to point out various figures who did hurt me in the past. Do I need to point out those who didn't? I can't even begin to list anybody who's ever hurt me, especially from any given and particular institution. I would certianly not do it on such a public forum, either. Maybe I need to just take some time and think about who has hurt me and how they've done so. Should I post it here and attempt to get help from those who care, or hide it from the world for solitary healing?

How do you start to heal?