You’re Dead To Me!

“You’re dead to me.”

Yep, I have heard this! Well, technically, I received it in a text message! 

The person who sent it was very close to me, and the situation was intense. And although it was a very trying time, it was still a very jarring statement. 

I am reflecting on that statement now. Why do we make these statements? 

The phrase “you are dead to me” is a strong, emotionally charged expression. When it is used, it means the person speaking it considers the person it’s directed at is no longer a part of their life. It’s not literal—it means that, in their heart or mind, the relationship is completely severed, as if the person no longer exists.

This is exactly what happened! We treated each other as if the other person were dead! 

People usually say this when they feel deeply hurt, betrayed, or disrespected. It’s a way of cutting emotional ties and communicating that the pain is too great to bear. 

When I look back at the situation, we were both deeply hurt. I am not sure anything could have rectified the situation at that time. 

Yet the Lord was at work!

Joseph’s brothers wanted him dead!

Reminding me of Joseph and his brothers. If you don’t know the story, Joseph was the favorite kid with his dad. His dad made him a beautiful coat that he didn’t make for his other sons. What happens when parents show favorites to their kids it brings resentment, and in this case, Joseph’s brother began to hate him. 

Working with victims and kids in the foster care system, what every child wants is to be loved and nurtured by their parents. When it doesn’t happen, it only brings anger and behaviors that feel, and they can be aggressive in words or actions. 

In Joseph’s situation, the issue started with his dad and how he viewed his children. By smothering Joseph with favor, it only highlighted how little he thought of his other kids. I don’t think there was anything the brothers could do to garner favor. It was a losing battle. 

Consequently, when the brothers couldn’t get the approval from their father, they turned bitter, angry, and hateful toward Joseph. In verse 4, it says, “they hated him and could not find it within themselves to speak to him on friendly terms.” (amp) 

In return, nothing Joseph could do would ever win his brothers over. Which created another problem, although he reveled in being the favorite, I believe he wanted his older brothers to love him.  There was no way he didn’t feel isolated and alone from his 10 brothers. Let’s really understand this. He was not welcome with more than half of his family. It was clear they hated Joseph, so how did Joseph compensate for that? To make himself feel better, he flaunted before his brothers what they did not have, the love of their father. He even went as far as to find them to let them know the dreams that God gave him. How the whole family would bow down to him because he was going to rule over them. 

How do we think this was going to go down? Of course, the situation escalated even more. 

The crazy thing is the Lord WAS speaking to Joseph, but Joseph used God’s words as a weapon to put down his brothers and make himself look better. This is what hurt does: it takes God’s words, and it’s delivered with pride and self-protection, which turns around and hurts other people. This happens when God’s truth is used in our flesh. 

Words and actions are an outward expression of the heart.

So, going back to my story: When I initially saw “You’re dead to me” come through my text message, I responded with bitterness. “Fine, I will never talk to her again.” Over time, this phrase became a joke for me, and although I have never said it directly to someone, I used to protect myself from the hurt it had caused. If someone made a minor slight toward me, I would jokingly say, “You’re dead to me,” masking my pain with humor. But underneath that humor was a wound that hadn’t healed.

After working for the last 13 years with victims of trauma and abuse, I’ve learned something crucial: words and actions are an outward expression of the heart. Spiritually, when we say, “You’re dead to me,” it often means the heart has lost hope in reconciliation and is trying to protect itself from being wounded again. When we are hurt, we push people away.

It took over 10 years for my friend and me to reconnect. We came from the same background of family trauma and twisted beliefs about God. We learned early on to cut people out of our lives as a coping mechanism. So, when she said, “You’re dead to me,” my heart’s response was, “Right back at you.”

Both of us were operating out of hurt, betrayal, anger, and grief. We used these words as a defense, trying to shut off the pain of being let down once again by someone we loved. Our lives had been shaped by rejection, so we simply continued the cycle.

The hard truth is this: when you’ve grown up only seeing one type of response to pain and conflict—being dismissed, not allowed to cry, ignored, shamed, or watching others avoid and ignore the real issues—it’s nearly impossible to believe there could be a better way. And maybe this is your story too. Maybe when someone hurt you, no one comforted you. Maybe you were told to “just get over it” or “stop being dramatic.” When love isn’t modeled in a safe way, we grow into adults who don’t know how to deal with pain, so we shut people out before they can shut us out.

Doesn’t it feel like Joseph and his brothers were coming to a breaking point? When Joseph was sent by his father to look for his brothers, this was the breaking point. They saw Joseph at a distance, and they plotted to kill him. Saying, “Look, here comes the dreamer.” What happened here?

God’s words to Joseph became irritating rather than inviting, it became a mockery rather than a movement, it became discouraging rather than delivered.  All because Joseph shared the words of the Lord with haughtiness rather than humility.

Guess what happens next? They want him dead!

You don’t hear them say you’re dead to me, but their actions are quite literally going to play this out. The brothers wanted Joseph dead. Isn’t that what the phrase “you’re dead to me” means, whether we say it in our hearts or out loud? We want that person forever out of our lives. Joseph brothers were bitter and jealous of the favor Joseph had with their father. Joseph fed into by parading that favor and trumpeting the dreams he had, and that he would be better than his brothers. Even deeper than that. That he is better than his brothers. 

A plan quickly formed among the brothers. They didn’t say, “You’re dead to me,” but they acted on it—they sold Joseph into slavery and told their dad that his favorite child had been killed by a lion. For the next 20 years, these brothers had to live with this lie. They had to live with the guilt of what they did to Joseph. The heartbreak that almost broke their father. The shame and guilt overrode their hatred, and God was preparing them to be rescued from their guilt and shame and restoring what was completely lost. 

Joseph was separated from any favor and had to rely solely on the Lord in his isolation. He had to learn to work when he never had to, which helped him learn integrity. He was wrongly accused and thrown in prison, but He learned humility.  He was forgotten, but he learned he was not forgotten by the Lord. And instead of chasing his own dreams, He was now helping others with theirs.  This time it wasn’t Joseph leading the way; now it was Joseph following the Lord’s leading. Soon, God was going to fulfill his promise to Joseph because now Joseph was ready. He was ready to lead in a foreign nation, and he was ready to see his brothers without bitterness or resentment. 

When they were reunited, he said to them in Genesis 50:20, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

God takes what is meant for destruction and turns it into restoration. He specializes in resurrection—even of relationships that feel dead and buried.

After the Lord connected me and my friend again. We learned that God was working in our “in between.” That in between when the relationship died to when the Lord brought it back to life. It was the in-between that the Lord was working on us individually in deep ways. He was healing the hurts from our past. We learned separately about the trauma in our own lives and how the brokenness we grew up in affected every decision we made and how we interacted in our relationships. We currently pray together and have witnessed what we declared as dead be resurrected in Christ. 

What we have learned with Joseph and his brothers and through my own experiences is that God wants our old hurts, our old betrayals, our old unhealthy beliefs; those things need to be dead to me. I hurt others when I am hurt. I can’t forgive when I am hurt. I can’t hear God’s truth when I live in hurt. These things I hope to say are dead to me. To live is Christ, to die is gain. 

Living in Christ brings an abundant life, and letting the old, destructive behaviors die is truly a gain. I am living it now. God is able to restore so many things in my life because my destructive behavior and the devastation of trauma are dead to me.” 

If you’ve ever said or received the words, “You’re dead to me,” know this: the story isn’t over. Where the world severs, Christ can restore. Where pain shuts doors, the Holy Spirit can heal hearts. I believe Joseph had no idea he would ever see his family again. His life changed so drastically that the dreams he once had as a child seemed almost forgotten—yet God’s plan was even greater. We never know when the Lord will breathe life into a relationship that feels dead. He may offer us the chance to witness His healing power—but we must allow Him to work. Don’t let hurt have the final word.

Let love rise again because those destructive things are dead to you.