Offended but Not Finished: How to Thrive Beyond Wounds in Community and Ministry

We speak to builders, creators, and leaders who pulled back after being hurt and offer a clear path from isolation to healthy community. The focus is naming wounds without nurturing them, guarding the heart with filters not walls, and re‑engaging through service and creativity.

• offense is inevitable, staying offended is optional
• three valley choices: retreat, stall, advance
• name the wound, don’t nurture it
• guarding your heart as filtering, not isolating
• community as context for healing and purpose
• replacing bitterness with boundaries, pain with purpose
• forgiveness without pretending it didn’t hurt
• rerouting expectations with humility and grace
• small acts of service to re‑engage
• creativity and generosity as part of healing
• resilience: pressure shapes, response defines

If this is you and you’re on the outskirts out there, and you have decided to go into survival mode, self-protection mode, if you’re gonna re-engage and you really believe that this that we’re talking about today in this episode is helpful to you, and you believe this is the truth, and you want to start engaging in this, if you want to buy into this, start re-engaging with some small accessories. Begin to show up in small ways for other people. Create something new. Begin to participate in areas where you know there’s growth in it for you and for others.

🎧 Call to Action:
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And remember: healing happens when you stop replaying what hurt you and start rebuilding what’s still in you.

healing • forgiveness • personal growth • leadership development • creative ministry • emotional resilience • relationships • community building • mindset • spiritual growth • overcoming offense • forgiveness journey • s

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Who This Is For
• 0:45 Offense: Inevitable, Not Inescapable
• 3:05 Valley Choices: Retreat, Stall, Advance
• 5:20 Living Free From Being Offended
• 9:10 Name It, Don’t Nurture It
• 12:20 Small Pain, Big Walls
• 15:25 Guarding Your Heart vs. Self-Protection
• 19:05 You Can’t Heal While Hiding

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:43

Welcome back today. Call me Mr. U's Inspiration Station. I'm your host, Mr. U, and today's episode is for guess who? The builders who stopped building. For the creators who stopped creating. For the leaders who withdrew. Not because they didn't care, but because they were tired of being hurt. Just want to welcome you guys to the Inspiration Station. This is the podcast that fuels your purpose, strengthens your mindset, and restores your joy in leadership, relationships, and personal growth. Let's start with this. It's not the wound that destroys us, it's what we do with it. Offense can build walls or build wisdom, and the difference lies in whether we heal or if we hide. I'm talking about this because we are collectively in a season of transition and a season of growth. And when you're in that middle ground, if you will, that valley, you got two options. Well, you actually got three options. One option is you can stay in the valley and die there, like many of the children of Israel did in the book of Exodus, or you can go back to what represents bondage and disgrace and shame and guilt and all those things. Or option number three, you can move forward into a new territory, into new ground, into a new season of your life, and change the narrative that you've been living with for so many years. We're talking about how to move from surviving in isolation to thriving in a healthy community. Why are we talking about this? Why does this matter? Because somewhere, maybe somebody right in your circle who you're paying no attention to, maybe it's you personally. We carry an offense around like a blanket, and it's just not good for us. It destroys Israel the fiber of everything that's good about us, everything that's confident and bold about us. And we gotta shake that stuff loose. The reality of offense is that it's inevitable, but it's not insurmountable, it's not unbeatable. Let's be real, offense is a part of life. If you've been offended by anyone in any area, you can go to a new area that's similar to it and still find offense there as well. Because we compare we carry a component in us that makes that offense come alive. And it's how we receive it, how we accept it, how we handle the wounds that make it a constant thing that follows us around like a shadow, or something that we fight back against, shake loose, and get free of. You can't do ministry, you can't lead people in organization, you can't create anything of value without bumping into some kind of betrayal, misunderstanding, bias and preference, God help us, criticism, or some kind of accusation. Luke 17 and 1 says, It is impossible, but that offenses will come. In other words, it's inevitable, it's gonna happen. Can't do nothing about it. Even Jesus said it's impossible to avoid offense. So the goal isn't to live offense free, that's not reality, but to live free from being offended. That's the goal. I'll say it again for those in the back, you might have missed it, you might have thought I flubbed what I was saying. I didn't. So the goal isn't to live offense free, but the goal is to live free from being offended. You get it? Every time you go outside, and somebody who is a former germaphobe like I am, I think I'm still I still am, but just not as bad as in times past. If you could see all the particles, all the bacteria, all the things that are flying around in the air that fall on you, fall in your hair, in your nose, in your ears, on your hands, on your skin, on your clothing, you would freak out if you had a shield. Thank God we can't see all those things. We'd be a wreck. We wouldn't even go outside. We'd be living in a bubble, even in our own house. That's how easy offense can fall on people. As simple as a piece of dust blows in the wind onto your clothes, it's that has on your clothing, it's as easy as offense can fall on us. Our goal is to live, isn't to live offense-free, because you can't. Like Lou 17 and 1 says, it's impossible. It's gonna come. Our goal is to live free from being offended. We dust that stuff off of us. It's not Teflon, it's not gonna stick to us. We get it off of us. I think the quote was attributed to George Meyer, I think it is. She said, holding on to offense is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Wow.

unknown: 6:05

Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 6:06

Holding on to offenses like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. When offense comes, here's a just a profound takeaway I want you guys to have for this. When offense comes, just name it. It's okay to name it. Just don't nurture it. Don't give it life. Don't keep it going. Name it when it comes, but don't nurture it. Identify it so you know what you're not gonna let allowed or allowed to be in your life, but you won't let stand in your life. Name it. Just don't nurture it. Identify the pain, but don't make it your personality. Don't identify with it so much that you say, you know what, this is my pain, this is my thing, my issue, my problem. Don't do that. Don't take it home with you and call it a house pet. Raise your hand if you've been there. It hurts like no other pain that I can tell you about. Barefoot on a Lego. I don't know who made Legos, how much testing they did on Legos, but I tell you right now, your barefoot on that Lego is a pain that I can't describe. But when that happens to you, if you can relate to this, you don't throw away the whole house because of one Lego. You stop, remove whatever's causing you the pain, and you keep on walking. Probably to the kitchen and get a snack. But the bottom line is you keep walking, you don't throw the whole house away. Did that make sense? Everybody's stuck on the Lego apart. Excuse me. Offense often starts with a small cut, but it turns into a concrete wall if we leave it untreated. Many people who I think are insanely gifted, talented, blessings to the body of Christ stop serving, they stop showing up, they stop trusting again, worst of all, because to them they see the pain as something that's permanent as opposed to something that they just passed through on the way to blessing, on the way to health and healing, on the way to success and fulfillment. Proverbs 4 and 23 says, Above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. The issues of life is how it's also uh translated in different versions. That was the NIV version, right there. Above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. Now, guarding your heart does not mean being self-protected. Get that out of your head, it's totally wrong. It's bad theology, it's not even true, it's a lie. Guarding your heart doesn't mean closing yourself off, putting a big barrier around your heart so nobody can hurt you. Jesus went to sleep and ate, washed, took naps around somebody who was destined to stab him in the back. That means he was in the same room with his betrayer who had a knife. He turned his back and said, I know you can stab me with it. I love you so much that I'm okay with that. Guarding your heart doesn't mean closing it off. It just means filtering out what gets to stay and what doesn't get to stay in your heart. If you isolate to protect yourself, you end up imprisoning yourself. I'm gonna say that again because somebody needs to hear that. I know people who need to hear that. Hear me on this. If you isolate to protect yourself, you'll end up imprisoning yourself. If you've ever been to jail before for any amount of time, I don't care if it's been 15 minutes, if you've been to jail before, you know it's a very unpleasant situation. Imagine living in jail for 30 years. And you don't have to. That's crazy, man. You can't heal while you're hiding. The same community that hurts you isn't necessarily the one that's going to heal you, but community by itself is still part of the healing process. You ain't healing alone. You heal with people who love you, who appreciate you, who see the value in you. That's who you heal with. That kind of community. Think about it. If you ever had a broken bone before, do the doctor amputate your entire leg or do they set it and stabilize it and let it heal? What does the doctor do? Likewise, when offense breaks trust, you don't amputate your whole purpose. You don't just get out of the game and just quit. You don't quit on God, you don't quit on your community, you don't quit on your organization, you don't quit on your family. You allow God to do what he does better than anybody else can ever do. Let God reset your heart, give you a new perspective, you walk in his grace, and you allow him to love you. You allow him to encourage you, you allow him to inspire you again and give you fresh vision again. That's what you do. You don't cut the whole purpose off and just act as though it's just over and it's nothing and it's not worth anything, it's not worth your time anymore. You don't cut off your purpose like you like the doctor didn't cut your leg off when you had a broken bone. You let God help you reset it so that the healing process can begin and be effective. Here's the truth every level of leadership or any kind of creativity or service, it comes with a test of offense. Everybody has to go through it. It's almost a wider passage. I don't know anything that I've ever started with it wasn't some kind of offense test. I don't get it. Why do we think we're gonna avoid this? The question isn't will they hurt me? It's will I still love them, will I still lead them, will I still stay creative after they hurt me? You can't walk around in a bubble and walk around ready to be offended, on the edge of your seat, ready to snap back. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying, stop being surprised when offense comes. It has to happen. It's one of the tests of leadership. Matthew 11 and 6. What does it say? Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me. Even John the Baptist, forerunner for Jesus the Christ, and his family, his cousin, got offended when things didn't go the way he expected. Basically, Jesus said in his own way, don't let the expectations that haven't been met cause you to disconnect from your divine purpose. Basically, what we were saying was, John, get over yourself. What's the original purpose? What's your why? Stay on task with that. Stop getting caught up in all of the hype and the propaganda and all the voices speaking that don't know what they're talking about. John C. Maxwell said, Great leaders learn to convert offense into wisdom instead of resentment. Great leaders learn to convert offense into wisdom instead of resentment. I love that. When offense shows up, what's your first reaction? I can tell you what mine used to be. I'm slapping people. That's the hood that I come from. However, that's not where I am now. So when offense shows up, what's my reaction now? What's your reaction? Are you asking yourself, what is this offense teaching me about my expectations? What is this offense uncovering about my attitude? What can I learn about communication in this? Is there an opportunity for me to grow in grace right here? Where do I do that? You ever try to use your GPS and it says recalculating? That's scary when you don't know where you are, right? But that's how the Holy Spirit works when we get offended. He's not canceling a destination, he's not taking a destination out of your travel plans. He's just rerouting you. And he does that with humility and patience and honestly, with love. I'm just saying. There's so many of us that seem to be in survival mode, and it's really hard for me to understand. Excuse me. It's really hard to understand this. Why are we in this place where we are just in this place of self-protection? What has that ever got us? Show me one good area about this that has been good for us long term. Surviving isn't about self-protection. But if you're talking about thriving, it's a different story. Do you want to survive or do you want to thrive? If you want to survive and just self-protect, you'll be in this bubble all your life and you want to accomplish most of the things that you were on this earth to accomplish. But when you're thriving, you're protecting the purpose. You're keeping that in front of you. That's your focus. You know this is where I'm going, no matter what kind of arrows are being slung at me. No matter what rocks they throw at me, I'm staying focused on what the goal is here, why I'm here. You gotta take the bitterness out and replace it with boundaries. Take the pain out and replace it with purpose. We need to do an exchange there. Bidness for boundaries and pain for purpose. Ephesians 4 and 32 says, be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. Forgiveness does not mean this is just a misconception that I want to clear up today. Forgiveness does not mean acting like it don't hurt you. When you were little kids and you got a sibling and they slapped you in the head real hard, you busted out crying, probably. At the end of the day, your parents try to get you to forgive each other for whatever the thing was that caused this problem between y'all. Your hair still hurt. You might even still look at your siblings sideways like, man, they slapped me. I ain't gonna forget that. But forgiveness doesn't mean pretending it didn't hurt. It just means choosing healing over uh a negative history that cripples you and all your relationships going forward. Brene Brown, I believe she said, you can't thrive in a place you secretly resent. You can't thrive in a place you secretly resent. Re-engage. If you're that person who's not even on the outskirts, you have totally disconnected from your community, if you will. If you're that person, start re-engaging, even in some small ways, small access service, just some little things to start giving back to other people. I was telling a spiritual son uh not long ago that people who are generous, they never fall into low self-esteem and depression and have suicidal tendencies and ideations and all these things that people talk about today. Because you're too busy giving and serving selfestly. You don't have time to think about yourself and all that's that's not about you and how that bothers you. If this is you and you're on the outskirts out there, and you have decided to go into survival mode, self-protection mode, if you're gonna re-engage and you really believe that this that we're talking about today in this episode is helpful to you, and you believe this is the truth, and you want to start engaging in this, if you want to buy into this, start re-engaging with some small accessories. Begin to show up in small ways for other people. Create something new. Begin to participate in areas where you know there's growth in it for you and for others. And just keep doing that until that passion or that intensity about life in general comes back. You know, there's a story about a gardener whose plant was trampled. Instead of pulling it up, he staked it and kept watering. Over time, the same plant grew stronger because it learned how to grow through the pressure. That's thriving. Imagine if he pulled it out before he got a chance to learn that incredible lesson, he'd have one less crop. Thriving isn't avoiding the damage, but refusing to let it keep you from growing. I hope you caught that. Thriving isn't avoiding the damage that happened, but it's refusing to let it stop you from growing. Anytime the offense gets a chance to linger and hang out in your life, you start getting numb. And you can't create. You're not in that creativity space. You can't create, you can't operate and function at high levels, you can't flow and communicate with people who love you. You can't even take the appreciation, you're just not in it. You're you're off, you're off kilter. You stop dreaming because dreaming makes you vulnerable again. But creativity, your generosity of service is part of your healing. I'm gonna say that again for those in the back. Please hear me. Hear my heart today. If you watch our shows and you listen to our shows, however, you follow any of our brand of shows, you know my heart. Nothing malicious about me. I ain't trying to hurt nobody's feelings. I ain't trying to attack one or no amount of people. Your creativity and your generosity are part of your healing. Psalms 147 and 3, excuse me, 147 and 3 says, He heals the broken in heart and binds up their wounded. When you create, when you give, when you serve, when you speak again, when you begin to connect again, you give God something to breathe life into. I love that. I love that so much. Can you hear me? Are you guys listening to me? When you create, serve, and speak again, when you grow, when you are given in generosity, you give God something to breathe life into. Don't let what's wounded you silence what's within you. So close in the back to that, I think might need to hear that again as well. Don't let what wounded you in the first place silence you and silence what's inside of you. Just healing isn't instant, and we get that, it's incremental. Teach, serve, paint, draw, journal, write, sing, play, whatever you do that gives you that flow where you flow in creativity and you just begin to love life again and appreciate what you have, whatever it is that takes you to that place. Start doing it again. Every step you take back into community, even if it's a small one, it's a step toward wholeness. Excuse me. Understand that it's a step toward wholeness. The same hammer that breaks glass also shapes steel. What happens to you doesn't define you, how you respond does. Offens can shake you, but it doesn't have to stop you. Come on. Let's get together again.