When There’s A Hole In Your Soul - Yep! You Were Cheated!

When There’s a Hole in Your Soul - Yep! You Were Cheated!

IT’S BEST if we admit out loud that we were cheated. Cheated out of a happy childhood. Cheated out of a loving relationship. Cheated out of the wonder of motherhood. Cheated out of a corner office. Cheated out of good health. Cheated out of financial security. The list goes on.

Sometimes we were cheated by people who intended us harm, but more often we were cheated by people who were oblivious to the destruction they caused. People who just weren’t taught better. People who were previously cheated by others and knew no other way to act. People who were just plain stupid. The list goes on.

We blame the people who hurt us. We blame the people who didn’t come to our aid. And sometimes we blame God.

There is not a man, woman, or child walking on the face of the earth who has not been or who will not be betrayed. The question is, have you let your anger and disappointment fester into bitterness that is now eating a hole in your soul? Will you let the past or present define your future? Will you continue to try to fill the hole in your soul with stuff? Girlfriends—designer shoes, Twinkies, and sex will not fill that very sad, lonely place where you have been deeply wronged.

I know; it’s hard. I’ve been there too.

I had to forgive my mother for planning a suicide attempt so I would be the one to find her. I was fifteen years old when I came home from school and found her lying on the floor. I was too young to know that my anger would subside only to be replaced by something far more destructive. Over a period of 5,475 days (that’s fifteen years), bitterness ate a hole in my soul.

I did not excuse my mother for disregarding how her young daughter might feel or react in finding her and reading the note, alone at home. I did not excuse her—but as I tired of my own bile bitterness and recognized my own shortcomings as a mother, I did choose to forgive her. She made a terrible mistake, and fortunately, her suicide attempt failed. I did not forgive her for her well-being but for my own. I realized that forgiveness was the only way I would find peace.

What about you? Do you have people or circumstances you need to forgive? As Joel Osteen says in Your Best Life Now: “Forgiveness is a choice, but it is not an option.”^a

Be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:32)

Feeling cheated results in anger, and over time, anger turns into bitterness. Bitterness is a poison that slowly eats a hole in your soul. Forgiveness works as your antacid.

^a Joel Olsteen, Your Best Life Now (New York: FaithWords, 2004), 163.