How Can I Get 1% Better Today?
Understand Hurt People Hurt People
“Hurt people hurt people.” That simple phrase has been echoing in me because I have stood on both sides of it. I have been hurt, and I have allowed my hurt to spill onto others. What I have learned is that healing begins with grace—the grace of God and the grace of people who love us enough to tell us the truth, walk with us, and point us back to Christ. Grace does not excuse the hurt we cause. It helps us face it, take responsibility, forgive, seek forgiveness, and begin again.
I think about this often in the work we do with children. In our public schools, we serve children carrying pain we may never fully see. Sometimes it shows up as anger, defiance, disrespect, withdrawal, or poor choices. Those behaviors still require boundaries and accountability, but they also require adults who can see beyond the behavior. Love and discipline are not opposites. Sometimes love says, “What you did matters, but you still matter too.”
As Christians and as parents, we naturally want to protect our children from ideas and influences that do not line up with what we believe. That responsibility is real. But in trying to protect them, we have to be careful not to isolate ourselves from the very places where our presence and influence may be needed most. Protection and isolation are not always the same thing. If we remove ourselves from every place that is uncomfortable or different, we may also remove opportunities to teach our children, live out our faith, and influence others through the way we love, serve, and care for people.
Christ called us to be salt and light. Salt only makes a difference when it touches something, and light only matters when it shines in darkness. If our communities need more truth, grace, courage, compassion, kindness, and love, Christians need to be present where people live their lives—including our public schools. We do not have to force our faith on anyone to demonstrate it. We show Christ in how we serve, speak, forgive, lead, discipline, and care for people.
For parents, those shared spaces also create opportunities to disciple our children. They may hear something we disagree with or see something that does not reflect Scripture. Rather than treating every uncomfortable moment as something to escape, we can sometimes use it to teach: What did you hear? What do you think? What does God’s Word teach? How do we stand for truth and still love people? Those conversations help our children learn not only how to avoid darkness, but how to carry light into it.
Maybe that is how the cycle begins to change. Hurt people hurt people, but healed people can help heal people. People who have received grace can extend grace. I do not want fear to make my world smaller. I want to show up, live my faith well, love people consistently, and help our children learn to do the same. One relationship at a time —that is how hurt can become healing, and how a community can become stronger.
Shawn Halbrook
Superintendent of Schools, South Conway County School District