Broken Arrow

The Arrow Parable

There’s an old teaching that says…

If someone shoots an arrow at you, it can only wound you if you don’t remove it. If you leave it there, it continues to hurt you long after the other person has walked away.

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Many years ago, I was in a bar (shocker, I know, 😂😂). A group of very drunk women called me (another drunk women) over, smiling. I thought they wanted to talk. So I went over. One of them looked at me and said, “How does a girl like you get a guy like that?”

The whole group burst out laughing.

Even through the alcohol…

I felt it.

Ouch.

I laughed it off. I made some smart remark and walked away.

But here’s the strange part…

Years later, after I got sober, I realized something….

…I may have walked away from those women…But I never pulled the arrow out.

Somehow, I had allowed one careless comment from people who weren’t living the kind of life I even wanted… to become part of the way I saw myself.

Isn’t it amazing how we can spend years believing something simply because someone else said it?

The beautiful part?

Beliefs can be changed.

The same way one sentence can wound us…

…One new truth can begin to heal us.

Today, if someone said those same words to me… I’d probably smile.

Not because they were right.

But because I finally know my worth doesn’t come from someone else’s opinion.

Maybe today it’s time to ask yourself…

Whose voice are you still carrying around that no longer deserves space in your mind?