of a bad situation in your life, hoping to make sure it didn’t
merely affect your finances or your job or the status of a
friendship but instead pierced deeply into your heart. Where
he could keep twisting it. Inflaming it. Where almost any
memory or passing thought of it could poke at you, pick at
you, draw blood, inflict new damage.
Make no mistake, it is his doing. By specific design. Hurting
you once wasn’t enough. Those times when the original
incidents happened, times when you were mistreated or
betrayed or belittled—nooo, that level of pain just wasn’t quite
enough for him. He wanted more. He wanted permanent loss.
Personality change. He wanted to redefine how you thought
about God, about yourself, about others, even about those
people who truly love you and intend only good for you. He
wanted you fixated and patterned in your thinking so that few
things would seem more dear or desirable to you than paying
them back, getting your revenge. He wants you sobbing... or
better yet, just seething, the kind of emotion that doesn’t come
out in crying and visible reactions but instead just cooks inside
of you where the heat has no place to escape, where the tears
pool up and stagnate, creating a petri dish of toxic emotions
that you’re forced to keep breathing. He wants you baking in