Willing to Heal...

I remember being on a long drive in my car one February day.  The kids were both napping, and no one else was really out on that stretch of highway at that time, so it was just me.  I'm not sure about any other mommas out there, but the Lord likes to meet with me in my minivan, and He did just that on that particular winter's day.  No, not just the season that day made it winter, for my life was in the midst of a winter season, too. Everything seemed so cold and dead at that point. I was mourning the loss of friendships, being treated coldly by people who once were so warm towards me, and I felt so alone from how I was being so horribly misunderstood.  You want to know what's so wonderful

about those seasons of loneliness in our lives though? When we have no one else in our earthly lives, we realize that all we really need is Jesus, and the more we get of Jesus, the more we want, and the more and more He shows up.  So there He was, right there with me in my minivan.  I shared with Him my hurt, my disappointment, and my confusion at what to do with these wounds I had been left with.  And these are the words He wrote so clearly on the depths of my soul in that moment...

"We are all wounded people. And wounds are not pretty. That's why we need a Healer who can make something beautiful out of what is so ugly."

I'm sure each of us has experienced wounds at many points in our lives.  Maybe your little brother took a bite out of your cheek after church one Sunday, or maybe you were doing crazy 8's on your bike and you fell over and fractured your rib, or maybe you got hit in the head with a pickle ball during PE class, and you have the scars to prove it from each incident (not that I would know anything about any of those types of injuries...*clears throat*;-). But most likely, when you think of whatever wounds you have endured, the physical ones aren't probably the ugliest scars you've had to work past...it's the internal ones that have wounded your heart and often effected so many more areas in your life. It's the unkind word someone spoke to you in haste, or the utter betrayal from a close friend, or the abuse you were subject to.  Whatever the reason for the wound, wounds are never pretty.  And, just like a momma says to her child when they fall down, it seems like the world constantly says to us, "C'mon, dust yourself off and be brave and move on-you're going to be just fine." when in reality, the wound is still there, and you feel anything but fine.  There's a fine line between brushing off the wounds as if they never happened, and living a life consumed by your woundedness...and that's where our Heavenly Father shows up: right there in the middle of the hurt and the healing to provide us with a way to go from one end to the other.  The question is, though, are we willing to go through the healing process, because it's not as easy as just brushing off the hurt...

We had quite a scare this past week.  Lucy and another child accidentally ran into each other at Awana on Sunday evening.  The other child was older than Lucy, so when they hit, she kind of bounced off of him and fell...they think to the grass first, but she somehow ended up landing on a concrete grate. She showed some symptoms of a mild concussion (we aren't really sure if that's what it was or if she happened to come down with a tummy bug at the same time) and her poor lip and gums took quite a beating, not to mention her knee and arms and face.  We praise God she seems to be doing well now (it could have been sooo much worse than what it was) but the healing process has not been an easy one.  Each day her wounds tend to morph into a different shape or color, and even though we know it is a sign of healing, there are some moments that the injury looks worse now than it did when it first happened. And with each dab of peroxide, and each application of neosporin, and each change of bandage, we are met with the cries of our precious baby girl.  Wounds hurt-and not just when you first receive them, but also when you are in the midst of healing from them.  Lucy keeps saying to me, "It's okay Momma, you don't have to put medicine on it-I already have a bandaid on it."  Isn't that so like we are many times?  We just want to stick a bandaid over the problem, hoping if we can push it out of our sight that we will forget about it.  But no amount of covering our wounds, our hurt, will ever make it go away.  We need a healer, and healing isn't easy.

So as my precious daughter works through the pain of healing from a physical injury, I have to ask myself: how am I working on the process of healing from those inward injuries?  Am I holding tightly to my hurt and allowing it to turn into bitterness, or am I allowing my Healer to take me through the process of healing those inward wounds?  It's a daily struggle and a daily decision of dying to myself, and it's often not a very pretty one when you're in the midst of it.  But, Oh what beauty our Healer can make if we will allow Him to take us through the process.  Are you willing?