Inevitably, you were wounded in childhood, wounded as a young woman, wounded as an adult. Perhaps you were forced to grow up too quickly. You parented your siblings or even your own parents, becoming the “little mother” or the responsible one. Your circumstances robbed you of childhood play, of dreaming and dawdling. Perhaps you understood that no place was safe.

When do those wounds appear? Now, as an adult? Do they show up as bitterness and grumbling and jealousy, as in Miriam’s case? Do you become passive, wanting to force another to lead because you always had to be the leader in the past? Do your wounds show up as manipulation – trying to begin a revolt against another, a golden calf moment – or seep out in anger?

Wounds do not give us the right to wound others. The more quickly we deal with our injured hearts, the more quickly we rout the enemies of blame, of sin, of jealousy and bitterness. If you drink the dregs of bitterness, it will kill you, putting you into a depression, all the while other people are going on with their lives. Deal with it and put it behind you. Then the enemy of your soul is unable to gag the song of faith that waits to emerge.